


Guardian

by coley_merrin



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Consent Issues, M/M, Master/Slave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:09:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 60,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6723541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coley_merrin/pseuds/coley_merrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside.  He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: issues of sexual consent, references to past sexual assault, violence, kidnapping, slaves having no ability to say no especially at first, and did I mention issues of consent inherent to master/slave dynamics?

***

It was not night, but full daylight when Suho heard the first shouts of alarm and the warning bell rang for only moments before falling silent. Suho was frozen by the Pool of Silence, wondering what he should do. It was his place, protecting the inner sanctum. There were scrolls, a small collection of precious jewels, relics. But those were hidden. He protected the flame and the pools, not only those.

The sound of doors slamming open sent him into motion. There were rooms well-hidden in the interior, places he could hide, and if it was a simple raid, they would have no use for servants of the temple. They were simple men, who ate, and prayed, and Saw their visions. But he’d had no visions of this. The water had been disturbed, though, he thought as he ducked further into the stone walls. Perhaps that had foretold an attack. Unrest. But he had seen the same thing before storms, or before temple patrons came to take their due.

They brought their money, their food and tributes, in return for use of the bodies of the temple servants. Perhaps their prayers lifted quicker if they were spoken into skin.

There was no money, no coffers overflowing. All they had was stone, and water, and relics of times past. They had their bodies, and their storehouse of food.

Suho would rather the relics be taken than the food.

Suho turned a corner, about to head down further, and nearly ran face to face into a raider.

He knew that was what the man was. He wasn’t in temple robes, but leather, his hair unkempt. And Suho pivoted, racing down the hallway. If he could get to the next hall, he could find a place to hide. He kicked aside his sandals and ran on bare, quiet feet. Perhaps they considered Suho to be nothing more than a rat. The raider wasn’t running after him.

And while he still held that thought, he nearly ran straight into another.

But that time he wasn’t so lucky, caught at the collar and half kneeling, half-trying to hold himself up so that he did not choke.

“Please,” he got out, the only word he spoke before he was shaken, his shoulder slammed into the wall to silence him.

He stayed there on the floor, panting, heart racing as the other raider approached and he wondered if he was about to be killed.

“A temple whore,” the man said. “He’s claimed for Kai if he’s wanted.”

A rough hand grabbed his arm, dragging him onto his feet. The man was older than him by several decades, but his hold was strong. Suho belonged to no one.

“I am guardian of the temple pools. You must release me, or—“

A loosely curled first struck his cheek, and he gasped, tasting blood.

“A slave does not speak unless asked to. You will learn that soon enough.”

He was not a slave. He was not. He blinked back tears of anger as he was pulled along like a dog on a leash.

“My sandals,” he said, cringing as they approached them in case of another blow. The man at least waited for a moment until he could step back into them. It was a kindness, because they left the cool of stone and water, the fountains and pools he used to call his visions.

Outside there was brush, rock, and hot earth that would have burned him. His hands were bound, tied into a line of people like him and unlike him. He craned his head, looking for familiar faces. All he saw right then was fear, and the line of them began to move, pulled at the whim of some captor ahead of them on a horse.

He tried to pull against the rope, and was hit with a stick.

So he stumbled forward, walked. Walked until his mouth was dry and lips peeling. At the river, they were allowed to drink their fill and he drank until he could no longer. His knees and elbows were bloody and stiff, blood drying on his forehead from where he’d been hit above his hairline.

He was dirty, sweaty, hot. There was quiet weeping around him, others too exhausted, or afraid, to make a sound. He had seen herds of cattle or sheep, but he had never been in a herd of people. He’d heard of people being taken. Used as sacrifices or—

He could not bear to think.

He slept, jerking awake in terror several times through the night. There were guards around them, so the chance of escape was small. But worth considering.

But when he woke, they were fed - food from the temple stores, and water. And they walked again half a day. He had the luck of a hood, pulled up to cover his head and shield him from the sun. Others were not so lucky.

They milled to a stop as the sun was beginning to slide down the sky, and Suho could just make out tents ahead of them. Bright colors against the dull browns and greens.

“You,” the man said who had captured him said, cutting Suho free of the leading rope. He stumbled behind the man toward the tents and wondered what was meant for him, for the others. He longed for the temple pools, and knew he would not see them again.

***

The raider called Suho’s shadow the dark side of the moon, because of how pale he was. But he was an opal, lit by fire. Though his hair was dark, it glowed red in the sun from the temple dyes. They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. Inside, logic told him he should bristle at being called “mine” when he was clearly his own. But he had been at the temple too long - the temple had owned him as surely as the man in front of him did.

“Your master’s name is Kai,” another slave told him. Sehun, he said his name was. “When we move camps, I am in charge of moving his things and getting him ready to go. Some of that you can take over. I am the slave of his father. Have you served before?”

“Only at the temple,” Suho said, as they ducked into a tent. It was not much cooler, but it was a relief. “But not like this.”

“You will bring him his meals, clean his clothes. I will show you what to do for a few days. You can always come to me. Better to me than to Kai. You can call him by his name between us. He will not forbid it.”

“And what do I call him?”

“I do not know his preference. I call him sir, since he is the son of my master. You should ask him. He is not a man who would beat you for asking.”

Then at least he was not that kind of man, Suho thought bitterly. The tent was not large, but it was split into two parts by panels of cloth. In one, a low table meant for eating, and in the other, a pile of blankets, furs, and rich pillows.

“We will build you a pallet so that you will be close to serve him at all times,” Sehun said. “I will teach you how he likes his bed constructed. He has several horses, but he has a man to care for them, so that will not be your task, though he may wish you to look in on them once you earn his trust.”

Suho felt ill just contemplating everything.

“We are nomadic,” Sehun continued, waiting for Suho to follow him into another tent nearby. “We stay as long as there is food for us, grass for the horses. Sometimes we stay in one place for a long time, other times we have to move quickly. We’ll find clothes for you here. You cannot wear those robes.”

It was a relief, in a way, to shed the heavy, shining robes. He was left in nothing but a gauzy undergarment at his hips that Sehun tutted at but didn’t require him remove. But the best thing beside had been the cleaning of his wounds. Sehun wouldn’t let him dress again until the scrapes at his knees and elbows were tended to - wounds he’d gotten trying to protect himself and escape during the raid. He wasn’t a warrior. Not all guardians protected with swords. He had been sentinel to the inner temple, in charge of keeping its rituals. But he imagined that was all destroyed.

They found protecting boots for when they would move, to protect him from cold, or heat, or anything else. There was also a pair of serviceable sandals for daily use. He put on the loose trousers, a thin shirt, and tunic that belted at the waist. Sehun had been selective, making sounds of disapproval until he’d found the right colors, right sizes. Suho wondered how many other raids had brought those clothes. Indeed, whose clothes he wore and if they were dead. Perhaps his master had killed them. He had not seen his— He had not seen _Kai_ during the raid. A defenseless temple. Suho had seen the others only briefly, forced together with them - all shellshocked and afraid - and forced to walk. Until he’d been pulled aside, and Kai had inspected him. Inspected was the right word. He was one of Kai’s horses now, one of his shirts. Probably of less importance than the table he ate off of.

“Have you eaten?” Sehun asked.

“No.”

He was given a hardening biscuit filled with some kind of meat, and he all but swallowed it whole. Food, clean clothes, and no pain. But Sehun was still instructing him as they carried bedding for Suho to use back to Kai’s tent.

“Take a plate of food for yourself when you fetch Kai’s food in the future. You should be able to eat quickly as he does, unless he wishes you to fetch other things or serve him wine or tea. Listen for him closely. You’ll get to know his routines.”

For some reason that made a shiver go down his spine. He didn’t want to get to know anyone’s routines. He wanted to go back to the place he’d known as his home since he was ten years old. The cool stone and whistles and echoes caused by the wind. Even the ground in Kai’s tent felt hot, but that was where they placed his bedding. He was in a corner of the tent, just beyond Kai’s bed.

“I need to go prepare for my master, but take this,” Sehun said, pressing a metal flask into his hand. “It is oil. Some men enjoy preparing their partners, and some do not. But it’s best to have it nearby. I know some who have been through terrible pain.”

“Prepared for what?” Suho asked, unsure of what strange ritual Sehun spoke of then. As the words left his mouth, denial crept in. Surely Sehun didn’t mean—

“You are here to serve him in all ways. Including to lie with him in his bed, or in yours, or at the table, or while he bathes. But only if he asks. Maybe you can send a prayer that he will not, if your gods still hear you.”

“But how do I— I know nothing. I was a servant of the temple. I—“

“He knew that when he chose you. Your name means guardian?”

“But I don’t know how to fight.”

“Then guard him all ways you can.”

Sehun’s face held some sympathy, but also resignation, but still Suho asked. “How long have you been a servant?”

“A slave. All my life,” Sehun said. “You will learn.”

“Thank you for— Thank you for helping me. I will try not to add to your burden.”

“I won’t be whipped if you misbehave,” Sehun assured him, which didn’t make Suho feel any better. But he pressed his hand to Sehun’s.

And he Saw with clarity.

“There is a man who cares for you. A man who smiles at you. A cloth merchant?”

Sehun pulled his hand away as though Suho had scalded him.

“You must not do that here. People who have sight, they are sometimes feared. Killed, if they see wrong, or if they see bad omens, as if they draw the bad to them.”

The tickle in the back of his throat was almost hysterical. “But I come from the temple. What else could they have expected?”

“Not all from the temples have power. Tell no one, for your safety, and I will keep your secret.” Sehun looked at his hand again and shook his head. “Stay here until Kai arrives. If you run, you will be whipped. If you run again, you’ll be killed. I’ll be back after the bell for dinner sounds.”

And he left Suho alone, sinking to his knees and staring at the flask of oil. Prepare for something he might not need to prepare for. Sleep in the tent of a man he didn’t know. Serve a man maybe not worth serving. If he ran, he would not be caught, that much he knew. He’d been a slave to the temple.

Perhaps not much had changed.

***

Suho did not serve in Kai’s tent that night. Kai entered the tent and Suho watched him, furtive from the corner he sat in. Some part of his brain told him he should stand, offer his assistance as Kai washed his hands. Perhaps in being proactive, he could win favor. Stubbornness held him back, not a virtue he held by any means. It was beyond hope that anyone from the temple would come to see him freed. They were not warriors, and there had been many tents that he had been led past.

No, there would be no one to save him. Perhaps another temple, one day. He soothed himself with that.

“Stand and come closer,” Kai said, taking a seat in a skin-covered chair made of sturdy pieces of wood.

Suho did, fighting the urge to cower, to hunch. He stood as he had always stood, with his eyes averted.

“Sehun saw to your clothing. That is good. Do you find them acceptable?”

“Yes,” Suho said, and the end of the word trailed away uncomfortably, since Suho did not know how to finish it. To call Kai master seemed appropriate, but the word was not so easy to come.

“This completes it,” Kai said, and took Suho’s arm. Around his wrist, a cuff of metal and leather was wrapped. “This marks you as mine, that you belong to this tent. Do not lose it, or remove it. If you are found out of this tent without it, you will be punished. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Suho said, staring both at the cuff and Kai’s hand on his arm. A possessive hand.

Sehun saved him from his inspection, as Sehun entered the tent and nodded at Kai before ushering Suho out. He watched with listless mind as Sehun showed him where the food was prepared, how much to take, how to take some for himself. He was to be spared nothing, and for that he could be grateful.

Even if it felt like part of him had been constrained by the addition of the cuff, he would not be withheld food.

Though if he angered Kai, that could change. He acknowledged that as he listened to Sehun, and then carried back Kai’s food - on his own. In the corner, he placed his own plate of food. On the low table, he put the tray - the bowl of thick stew, fried bread, sticky fruit. And from a skin of wine, he poured a goblet full.

“Your meal,” Suho said, and backed away from the table.

Kai hummed as he sank in front of it. “You did well. To your own food. I will let you know if I need anything.”

The food was good, but it did not feel satisfying in his mouth or his belly. Perhaps it was because he gulped it down, afraid of some transgression he had not committed, and how it would hurt him. Perhaps Kai could see his unease, read his mind of yearning to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Unlike the temple, he had no joy or fulfillment in knowing Kai ate because the food had been brought by him. Kai could have fetched his own meal. He was able bodied. And yet, he was born to be obeyed.

Sehun seemed to like Kai, however. In the way he spoke, he was not warning Suho from a cruel master. But if there was one thing that Suho had learned, it was that some slaves did not know there was another alternative. Whatever cruelty they were dealt was a way of life.

Kai stood from the table, and Suho stayed still indecision. _When he is done, bring the tray to me._

But Kai ignored him, returning to his chair and his ledger, and leaving Suho to wonder. A word to indicate he was finished would not have been too much. But it was only when Suho stood that Kai’s head rose.

“You can take them.”

Granting him permission. It was not in him then to defy Kai. All he had to do was carry a tray, and walk back to a tent. He was being trusted. Tested. But he walked slowly, feeling the grass against his ankles and breathing as he stared up at the sky.

But Sehun was in motion, urging him in and taking the tray.

“I thought he’d fallen into the bowl,” Sehun said. “But you found your way back. That’s good.”

“When he leaves the table, he is…”

Suho would not say his name aloud. Not yet.

“He is usually finished if he leaves his food,” Sehun agreed. “Unless someone comes in to interrupt him. He will move it aside if he wishes to use the table, or just leave to do something else. You’ll learn. I don’t know his thoughts, but I think you did well.”

“I didn’t spill anything on him.”

“Or refuse to work.”

“Being beaten would not sweeten my position in life,” Suho said, and reached to take the pitcher of water that Sehun offered.

“Thats true. But you shouldn’t linger. If you have a question—“

“I’ll come to you,” Suho said.

He stared down into the water’s shifting surface in the light of the moon outside. He did not need water to call his visions, but it was part of his soul. It would be so easy, if he carried the water to Kai, to put something in his water to make him sleep deeply. And then, he could use the night to sneak away. But he didn’t have the knowledge to. The horses could be guarded, and he knew only how to ride the slow, aged horses that they used to pull their carts. To get away, he would need more than that. One, even two horses, to carry him further than any person following him could catch. He would need provisions, and a knowledge of the layout of the river of tents, more than the short distances between the back of one tent to another. More than only part of a day, and fear, would give him the answer to.

Kai’s goblet was outstretched the moment Suho ducked under the flap of the tent, and with his mouth pressed into a line, Suho poured carefully.

“I led the raid on the temple,” Kai said. “Did you know that?”

Suho shook his head, eyes on the cloth-covered floor.

“Yes. One of my swordsmen claimed some of the temple men for my family’s tents.” Suho inhaled as Kai’s fingers found his cheek. “You were not long in the sun. That is good. Sehun gave you a cloth for your head? You should wear it, or you will burn too easily until your skin adjusts.”

Suho lowered his head. He did not care of his skin, or being burned from the sun.

“Why? Why raid the temple?”

Kai stood, and Suho’s foot slipped back as though preparing to run. It would not help him, perhaps only make Kai angrier.

“Should I not have?”

“It was a holy place,” Suho said.

“A place of whores and scammers. There is nothing left there to return to. No holy men. The pools are emptied. The food, you may have eaten some of it tonight.”

Suho winced when Kai spoke of whores. “Do they live, the others?”

“No one was killed that I know of, but you were the only one brought here to us. The others will be sold.”

“But there were some with the Sight,” Suho said, and it made him sick to think of it. “The temple did good to the poor—“

“It is not your place any longer,” Kai interrupted. “For the sake of the temple, you were called upon to service men and their cocks?”

Suho breathed out through his teeth, but could not think of a way to deny it. “Yes. The temple relied on donations. Sometimes to keep someone happy—“

“Then the money was more important than virgins in the temple.”

“It was food in our mouths,” Suho nearly contradicted him, before lowering his head again. “And it wasn’t often. We fed many with that money and that food.”

“The patrons will see to the poor without the benefit of your body. Your mouth? Or your ass.”

The word shocked him, but he tried not to show it. “Mo-mostly by mouth. The other times—“

The temple oil had been spilled for their patrons to ease their passage and open their purses.

“Good. Then you’ll know what to expect.”

Kai’s fingers ran through his hair. It should have been soothing, but was instead possessive and quite nearly rude.

“This hair made you stand out. Red-haired witch among the others.”

Suho’s mouth parted to say he was no witch, but at least then, he was able to stop the sound.

“You have no further allegiances to that place of worship,” Kai told him. “I am the only temple you will be worshipping at now."

“Yes,” Suho said. And with the word sour in his mouth, he finished, “Master.”

“I should give you time to adjust. But I want your mouth on me tonight. If you are able?”

Suho nodded, and knelt, and kept his eyes closed and his mouth open. He’d done it enough to know what to do, until Kai came over his tongue.

The back of his hand kept anything from spilling from his lips and he stared at the floor.

“Prepare yourself for bed, and turn out the lights,” Kai casually ordered. “It’s been a long day and you should sleep.”

Maybe it was not as bad as Suho had feared, but it had not been everything. He could do that, if he had to. He just didn’t know what else he would have to do.

And the following night proved it, as he slicked his own body with Sehun’s offered oil and his knuckles turned white on the leather trunk he braced against as Kai took him from behind. And the night after that, and after that. It did not pain him as much as it erased him. All he had to do was prepare, and kneel, like an animal. He swallowed any sounds of pain or discomfort, and shuddered as Kai pulled from him. He was learning Kai’s routines, how to serve him, and please his body. And all the while, Suho learned how to clean Kai’s tents, fetch his food, and attend to his clothes.

It could have been worse.

He repeated that to himself almost every hour.

***

Kai’s most intimate concept of owning a slave came from growing up with Sehun. Sehun had been there as his playmate, servant, learning at his side. A boy needed that, his father had said, and it was better if the boy with his son was from inside his tents instead. It made him grow up strong. Together, they had matured. How Sehun treated his father, with deference and quiet, and how Sehun treated Kai was different. In many ways, Kai trusted Sehun more than even his father.

Being almost the same age and full of energy, there had been a number of fights. When Kai had been feeling particularly bratty, he’d pull out the fact that he was the owner’s son and that Sehun was just a slave. One time, that had gotten him a split lip for his trouble, and Sehun in tears. When his father asked, Kai had blamed it on his horse.

Because no matter their fights, or their difference in positions, Sehun was his friend. And if he had told his father that Sehun had lifted a hand to him, Kai could not have even thought of the injury it would have brought. Whipping, most likely, or even being sold. He imagined the betrayal in Sehun’s eyes.

No. He felt Sehun’s loyalty to him, and that loyalty was returned, even as they left boyhood and petty fights behind them. But Suho was different. They had no shared past. Kai could almost see the study on Suho’s face as he held back words or maybe even thoughts. When Suho was finished eating, he was kneeling and silent, waiting for Kai to be done. When Kai spoke to him, at least he had stopped cringing as though Kai would lash out. There had been accusation, not that Suho would lift his eyes to let it be seen. That Suho was there, and not in his temple of sins. Instead of many men urging him to please them, in Kai’s tent there was only one. And Kai felt he had been gentle as he had discovered what Suho’s body was able to take.

Suho’s face was angled and fine, his body fit. To Kai, he was infinitely attractive, and brought him pleasure in every way Kai had asked. But Kai’s experience with the pleasures of the human body were not like those with Suho.

Waking after another night of Suho silent and barely breathing as Kai had taken him, he was dissatisfied. It had had all the added excitement of using his own hand to find pleasure. And there was only one person he could ask.

“You and I have known each other a long time,” Kai said, and Sehun nodded. “Guarantee me this conversation goes no further than your ears.”

“Of course.”

Even with that guarantee, and the fact that he knew he wouldn’t have had to ask for it with how he knew Sehun, it wasn’t easy to speak. It was not a question that Kai could have asked his father. To those he saw around him, slaves were there to be of use. A slave of a man’s own, one that saw to his tent, often served to slake sexual desire, even among those married. He had lived his whole life that way, understanding that a slave would be his to have as he wished. If Kai had asked his father, he would have been given recommendations to beat his slave if he was doing something unsatisfactory. Somehow Kai thought that would not be Sehun’s answer.

“A man who doesn’t react when he is taken. What reasons would there be?”

Sehun frowned, as though it were some kind of trick question. “I suppose if the man didn’t want it. Or if he was in pain. Or if he thinks he should not react.”

None of those reasons being reality pleased Kai. But there was no need to be coy.

“I’ve asked if there is pain, and he said no. He makes no noise at all, only to ask if I need anything else when I am through.” And when Sehun cleared his throat, Kai was exasperated. “Please, speak freely.”

“Does his body…respond? Ah. Rise?”

Kai frowned. “I don’t know.”

“You want him to respond? To react. To… You want him to be vocal?”

“That isn’t something you can ask someone to do,” Kai said, and knew that at least. “I can tell him to moan, but I wouldn’t know if he wished it.”

And Sehun sighed, relaxing. “Then you want him to want your attention, to enjoy what you do to him? You must have care to his needs as well. Not that you have to see to it yourself, but to let him know it’s acceptable? He might not know you wish him to enjoy it, or that you would allow him to see to his own pleasure. Or that making sounds in pleasure or pain is acceptable. He might not know you would like him to seek you out if he is…needing. Or— As a slave, I have only been able to teach him to respond to your orders. To do his duties, to be quiet and respectful and there only when you need. So if he thinks all you want is a body to be quiet, a body to use and walk away from, that is all he would be for you.”

“It is just eerie. He has spoken his mind on other things.”

“Perhaps that is what men before you have wanted from him.”

“Has he told you he desires men?”

“He has not told me he does not,” Sehun could only say. “It is also possible… It is possible he does not know that there is pleasure to be gained from it.”

And Kai felt very stupid indeed.

His father provided slaves to care for him, but none that were truly his. The little skirmishes and raids he had led before had left him with other slaves that tended his horses and saw to his belongings. None like Suho. Kai had first glimpsed him as he had been led out of the temple, defiant against the hands tugging him, until he had been shoved down with the other slaves.

That pride had excited him.

It was not something he had wanted broken. He did not find pleasure in the beating of slaves as others did, nor did he want a talking bird to echo his wishes. Sehun, he trusted, as they had nearly learned to walk together. Sehun, to him, was more brother than slave, and Sehun had been lucky in that Kai’s father had no desire of men. They knew each other’s secrets.

Suho had had opinions, spoken back to him, and questions. And day by day he grew quieter, like a shadow that inhabited Kai’s tents instead of the man Kai had seen. Suho ate, grew no thinner. He rose before Kai woke, kept the tent as neatly as Sehun ever had. Sehun trained him well, and would not have treated him harshly.

Kai ducked under the tent flap, and met Suho’s eyes for only a moment before they were trained upon the floor again. All he saw was the top of Suho’s head, and the instinctive reach of Suho’s hand for the water pitcher, anticipating Kai’s needs. A quiet, obedient servant. It was surely any man’s dream to have that. And yet, Kai had always had Sehun, quick to joke, slow to smile, but warm to him. A home within his home, even if they sat and talked and got drunk together. Suho was like a statuette, a relic of a temple long past, cool to the touch, when he knew there was a living flame inside him. Suho saw to everything he needed.

But there were needs that Suho did not understand of his master. And Kai intended to show him.

***

When Kai knelt behind Suho that night, he could see that he was slick. At his word, Suho had begun to ready himself, putting down his mending. Kai did not go to him immediately, giving him that time - only to say that he wanted Suho’s clothes off, all of them. And that, he watched. The play of shadows on Suho’s back, the line of his hips and thighs as he knelt. Kai knew what he expected. Sehun’s words, that Suho might not even know what pleasure was possible, stole through him.

That somehow he could show Suho made him hard. Oh, he didn’t flatter himself that Suho knew nothing of the joys his body could bring. But there were so many other ways. And he’d been so unable to see - afraid that Suho’s lack of response meant that he hadn’t wanted anything Kai had done to him, would never want it. To know that, it would have soured in his belly.

Kai’s hand was light between Suho’s shoulder blades. He would not be his father. When he thought of Suho’s face, he thought there were things that could not be taken. Suho’s skin was warm and soft, and he squeezed Suho’s hips.

“Have you taken your pleasure with men before? Or women?”

“Neither,” Suho said, his voice quiet. “The temple did not allow it.”

Then Suho was unknowing of what two people together could do.

“The men at the temple, when they took you for your tributes. Did they take you like this?” Kai asked, beginning to press into Suho’s body. And Suho gave and gave. “Did they want you to be quiet so they could spend themselves?”

Suho’s answer was breathy because Kai had just buried himself inside him. “Those were the lucky ones. Others wanted us to scream. They said our prayers would be answered more readily if our suffering was— I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. But you do know pleasure, surely. No man is without knowledge of that.”

Kai watched Suho’s head bob, and closed his eyes for a moment as he enjoyed the heat of Suho’s body.

“Have you brought yourself release in this tent?” Suho made a sound but Kai wasn’t sure if it was agreement or not. He could imagine it. Suho beneath his sheet in the dark, while Kai slept. “Try to do so now, while I’m inside you. If your body will rise, let it. And don’t swallow the sounds of your pleasure.”

“You want me to—“

“Do as you will. But you need not be quiet. I’m not like those men. I want—“

Kai took short slick slides, encouraging Suho just by the motion of their bodies together. He licked his lips, staring as he watched Suho’s arm move.

“If you make yourself slick,” Kai murmured. “For every stroke I take, feel it. Let it find you hard to have a man at your back. There is no pain?”

“No,” Suho said and shook his head, and pleasure flushed down Kai’s body. When Suho spoke of suffering, he needed to know. He’d asked before, but every time was different. Then they could begin in truth.

Suho moaned, strangled quiet at the end, and Kai’s hips jolted forward. “Yes. Don’t quiet yourself. Don’t swallow your sounds.”

He wondered what would make Suho believe him. And he realized, sounds of his own would do. To show Suho he wanted to be echoed, chorused.

“Turn your face,” Kai said, and pushed him forward until Suho rested against the hard leather of the trunk, his face turned, profile bared to Kai’s eyes. But also his mouth. He pressed his face against Suho’s neck and moaned as he stroked into Suho’s body. “Let your fist go faster.”

Suho’s whole face tightened. He didn’t know if it was from pleasure, or embarrassment, but Kai could feel his stroking invigorate. It did two things, making Suho’s breath come harsher, but also his body tighten. It made it harder for Kai to keep control as he became drunk on Suho’s expressions.

And his moans. Kai took a hard thrust, and Suho’s eyes went wide, surprise low in his throat.

“You like that?” he asked, and got a sound nearly the twin of the first. He’d done it. He’d found the way Suho liked to be fucked.

“Let me see you. Come for me. Show me your pleasure while I am taking you.”

Gripping Suho’s hips, Kai took him hard, drawing moans when he went faster. And against Suho’s face, nearly in his ear, he whispered nonsense, encouragements and moans as desire rose in him as well. He could hold on only just, only long enough to see Suho—

Yes, like that. The trembling in his shoulders, the urgent movement of his arm, his closed eyes and gasping mouth. Another time, Kai wanted to see Suho’s eyes when he came. It would mean Suho would face him. He could see everything then.

Suho made a sound like a plea. Like he was so close to completion and he could not find it.

It was simple enough to tilt his hips a little more, short and quick, until Suho’s held breath released on a moan of two parts. But he knew Suho was coming before he heard, because he felt it - when he thought Suho could get no tighter, when he thought he could enjoy Suho’s body no more, he learned what it felt, and sounded like to be inside him at the height of Suho’s pleasure.

He was greedy, and it made him rut with the glory of it. And Suho’s cry when Kai finished in him only served to heighten his pleasure. He’d taken. He’d pleased. Had been pleased.

Suho had moved from him the moment Kai had pulled away, going to the water he kept prepared. Kai stood, his limbs heavy and satisfied, and waited for Suho to return. He watched with satisfaction as Suho knelt and wiped him clean with a warm cloth, just as he’d been taught. But when Suho stood, he looked startled, wary as Kai ran his fingers through Suho’s hair. Perhaps he thought Kai wished to take him again, and the thought wasn’t without want. He glanced at the floor where proof of Suho’s pleasure was drying, and satisfaction coiled in him.

“I will clean it,” Suho said, as though that was what had made Kai stop him.

“The red in your hair is fading,” Kai said, and let his hand drop. “Were there dyes you used at the temple?”

“Yes.”

“Tell Sehun tomorrow. He will get you what you need, or take you into the market to choose. The color suits you.”

“I will tell him,” Suho agreed.

“I’ll sleep now, then,” he said, and yearned for his blankets. The light at his bedside was snuffed out, and he heard Suho moving about - cleaning where they had been, and then himself. But he was asleep before the tent was quiet, too well satisfied to stay awake.

***

And Suho in the dark was throbbing. There wasn’t pain, despite Kai’s enthusiasm. His body had adjusted to that, at least, and the oil served to ease Kai no matter what he chose to do. But what he had felt at the temple - men taking without regard to his wishes or his needs - was so different than that night. Kai had not touched him, but he had spoken to him, urged him. He had never touched himself with a person so close. It was almost as though Kai had enjoyed seeing him lose control, hearing the sounds Kai’s body drove from him. Before, always before he’d been biting his lips, his tongue, to stay as quiet as possible. At the temple, some men would beat him for daring to make noise while they forced their bodies into his. Sometimes the oil hadn’t been enough to stop the pain. Pain that had made him feel like he was drowning. One time there had been blood. Or they would beat him further. But his body had never risen, never needed or wanted to. They had not cared that their vessel was enjoying himself.

Surely there had to be some pleasure found in knowing the human beneath them was losing all sense of control because of them. Kai had made him wonder more, at the savagery he’d displayed as compared to the almost languid strokes he’d taken nights before - at least until he was at the height of his pleasure. It was as though knowing Suho derived pleasure had invigorated him.

So the next morning when he took Kai’s dishes back to the tents after Kai had eaten, he looked for Sehun. Sehun was younger than him, but so much wiser in the ways of people.

“Could I ask you something?” Suho asked, kneeling next to Sehun as he worked to clean. “Something that no one else can know.”

“Yes?”

“It is about…sexual…” He floundered for a word. Acts, perhaps. But Sehun merely looked back down at the bowl he was polishing.

“If I can answer, I will.”

“Is it usual for a man to want his partner to… find enjoyment as well?”

Sehun laughed, and Suho’s face heated. It could not be that ridiculous a question from someone who had never lived in the world.

“I am not laughing at you,” Sehun clarified, when he saw Suho’s face. “Only, that is the second time such a question has passed my ears in the last few days.”

“Oh,” Suho said, trying to get his embarrassment under control.

“Only the first question was different. Because the asker wanted to know if a slave wished to feel pleasure when taken by his master.”

Sehun’s lips were curved, even though he was not looking at Suho, and the jolt was immediate.

“You told him yes?!”

“No. Some slaves would rather their masters take what they wanted as quickly as possible, with no regard to their needs,” Sehun said, thoughtfulness in his voice. “Others might endure pleasure unwillingly because it was urged. Still others might enjoy all of it, even tell their masters when they were wanting, urge him to take more.”

“And those masters want that? No man I have known has wanted anything but to pride himself in the length of his cock taking whoever is beneath him.”

The words said were hushed, but true.

“A man might want to see his bedmate’s pleasure for two reasons,” Sehun said. “Either to stroke his own ego in his skill as a lover, or because watching another in pleasure feeds his own. Though sometimes the two reasons can have part of the others.”

“Then it is not strange.”

“No. It is perhaps not usual, but it is not strange. Did you— Hmm. Would you not want to be asked to enjoy it?”

Suho wondered if his answer would find its way back to Kai’s ears, either way he answered. He wondered if Sehun had encouraged Kai, if that was what had driven Kai to ask him to please himself. He’d never known it was possible to feel that kind of pleasure when a man was inside of him. To answer Sehun no was to say he had not enjoyed it. It had been…not horrifying at first, but uncomfortable. As though he were exposing part of himself, leaving something too personal bare for Kai to command.

But he remembered Kai’s moans against his skin, as he had come after Suho had. And it had almost seemed as though there was a connection, a thread drawing from his pleasure to Kai’s. He’d felt like more than a receptacle, a means to an end.

His pause had Sehun sighing. “Perhaps you should take time to…consider it. Some things take time to learn what is needed.”

“You would tell him if I did not?” Suho asked.

“I could suggest to him,” Sehun said. “That is really all I could do.”

And he felt oddly grateful that Sehun could or would intercede on his behalf.

“But you urged him thus—“

“I answered his question. He made a choice. But you do not know it,” Sehun warned.

“No, I never heard anything,” Suho agreed. “I will think about it as you ask. If I need you to speak to him, I will… Yes.”

“Good,” Sehun said, smiling. “We have to look out for each other, sometimes. But you can tell me the good things, too.”

Suho heard the tease in that, and laughed. Yes, he could share the good things. But until he knew what he wanted, he would keep it to himself. Perhaps Kai had sated his curiosity, and would want to take as usual. Perhaps one taste, one possibility was all he would have.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.

***

For a while at least, it seemed lucky to Suho that he was kept busy without the chance to sit and think. Kai had been in and out of the tent several times and each, Suho had looked up for a moment, wondering if Kai had a task for him. It was habit in himself to look down, deference, but even more so after because he worried that Kai would see him thinking or worse, see want in him. He was no stranger to his body’s desires, though finding pleasure so close to a man, not once, but again the night before, and again that morning. Suho had eaten breakfast aching and strangely sated, but hungry at the same time. Kai was teaching him, even as he took what he wanted. He moaned against Suho’s skin and murmured his name, and even the thought of it had Suho’s shoulders tensing.

When he noticed Kai watching him, heat flooded his cheeks and he turned, focusing hard on the bucket so that he didn’t have to consider anything else. It squirmed through him, confusion, and there was no one else to talk to about it but Sehun. It felt strange to do that, since Sehun knew Kai so well, and Sehun had been such a help to him when he’d arrived and so many days after that. He wasn’t sure what he’d say, anyway. That he was having strange feelings about liking his master’s touch? It didn’t bring feelings of disgust or guilt to him, though he wondered if it would make him complacent, accepting his slavery because of a few nice feelings. Mostly, he’d decided it was his right. If he wanted to enjoy it, he could, and if he could enjoy it, it was better than hating every moment or feeling himself violated. There would be times, he was sure, that Kai might want something he did not, or when he was tired, or did whatever he wanted without thought to Suho’s body. But he would have the other moments, feeling Kai against him, learning what felt good to himself, what he wanted, what he liked. It would be something he would know for whatever future he would have.

Suho paused, half looked up as Kai stopped beside him.

“The sun will be harsh today,” Kai said. “Make sure you protect your skin from it if you go out.”

“I will,” Suho agreed, and studied the leather belt at Kai’s hips as he left. It had him shaking his head and returning to work. There was no room for thoughts like that.

But harsh, the sun was all of that when he went out of the tent to see what chores Sehun had for them to accomplished. The sun was in his eyes almost immediately, and he felt it beating on both of them and on the cloth they worked with. Long stretches of cloth and clothing were being hung to dry, buckets of water were being carried, and wood for fires was being stacked. He was too busy to think of being out long, ducking into the darker tents and hurrying to bring whatever Sehun needed. They had a lot of laughter that day, catching cloth caught on the wind, flicking water into each other’s faces. For it being work, it had been surprisingly enjoyable.

At least until Sehun had peered at him. “Your face is turning red.”

And it had not been from embarrassment.

Suho stared at himself in the water’s reflection and cursed himself. He’d thought of the cloth that Kai had reminded him of, but he’d pushed that away. Perhaps it had been his way of asserting himself, that he could make decisions for himself. There had been nothing that Sehun could do for him then. His skin had burned, he nearly broke a plate, and ripped the cloth of his tunic on a branch.

Suho’s head bowed when he saw the displeasure on Kai’s face. The whole time there, he could have rebelled, and he had not, instead doing what he was told, moving quickly, learning. He’d spoken back, but from way that Kai took his arm, he knew that Kai saw it as defiance.

***

To Suho’s credit, he had not tried to hide himself, Kai thought. Suho’s face was flushed pink, over his cheekbones, his forehead and the back of his neck. Even in the growing darkness that was easily seen. It looked painful and raw, and he had warned Suho against it. There was anger in him as he pulled Suho closer to see.

“Did you not listen to me earlier when I warned you of the sun?”

“I did not think I would burn that quickly. I didn’t mean to be out that long,” Suho murmured.

“Then you disobeyed me of your own purpose,” Kai said. If Suho had forgotten, or refused of his own choice it did not matter. “That cloth to is to protect you, and your skin.”

“I am sorry,” Suho said, and Kai was sure he was, both from the pain and the clear realization that Kai was unhappy with his choice. You cannot allow a slave to disobey, was the voice of his father nagging in his ear. And Kai saw Sehun on the ground whimpering, ugly stripes across his back for speaking out of turn in the earshot of his father. Kai stiffened at the unbidden memory, scowling at the way Suho stood like he was unsure, scared, like he would beat him, like he would—

“Does it hurt?”

He actually heard Suho swallow. “It does.”

“Then that is a lesson to you. But not the only one. Bend over.” Maybe his father would have been pleased, but the stick he picked up was not meant for beating men. It would do. “How long do you think you were in the sun?”

“Parts of three hours,” Suho said.

“Then these are for the hours,” Kai said, and slapped the stick hard against the backs of Suho’s thighs. Not as hard as he could, but the sting would not fade quickly. Suho made a sound of surprise at the first blow, but was silent at the second but for his harsh breathing. “And this is to remind you that when I give you an order, it is for your own good.”

That strike was lighter, because he saw the tremble in Suho’s shoulders. It was not easy for a grown man to be shamed so, to take punishment. Suho might look on him less favorably after, but there was a tremble in his arm as well. He remembered too many things, and he had no anger left to carry him as he poked Suho’s leg with his foot.

“Go find Sehun, and tell him to give you salve, and bring it back to me immediately.”

Suho rose stiffly, but hurried out of the tent without a word. He hadn’t wanted to harm Suho, only teach him a lesson. It was authority that he was still learning, and he barred his father’s voice from his head, kneading his hands together for a moment. His father would have sent Suho to his pallet without supper, and perhaps breakfast as well. Instead of shame, his father would have seen Suho in pain. That was not his path. He was not his father.

When Suho returned a minute later, Kai watched as he walked, stiff and upright, though with his head lowered.

“Kneel here in front of me,” Kai said, and took the offered pot from Suho’s hand. It smelled rich, and it was cool against his fingers. And Suho startled as Kai took his chin and tipped up his face. “This will take some of the hurt from the burn.”

Suho’s eyes closed as Kai spread the salve across his forehead, down his nose, lips and chin. His cheeks almost looked flushed but Kai soothed those, and Suho’s head tilted forward as he smoothed the cream there as well. He could have had Sehun help Suho, or ordered Suho to do it himself. But there was a line between discipline and care, and he wanted to walk it. If Suho did not truly believe Kai wanted his safety, then he would not listen to Kai in the future.

“My worst burn was when I was ten years,” Kai told him. “I took no covering, was on my horse half the day. They joked that I looked bloody in the light, and I screamed when I was touched. My skin blistered and peeled. You can still see marks on the back of my neck from that. Yours is not nearly so bad.”

Suho nodded, sitting so still and demure in front of him.

“You understand why I hit you?”

“Yes, master. Because I disobeyed you. And didn’t care for myself as you commanded.”

“Good,” Kai said, and felt a strange sort of relief when Suho did not cringe at the hand he put on Suho’s shoulder. “Do your legs hurt?”

Suho paused a moment. “Yes?”

And Kai could not help the laugh. “A wise answer.”

There was misery in the set of Suho’s shoulders that Kai wanted to soothe. He could not, he knew that, lest he mark himself as weak. There was danger in caring too much, and his frustration had passed.

“Make sure you drink water before sleeping. I will not add to your injuries this night. I want nothing from you. Secure the tent, and find your bed.”

Suho rose, and for a time, Kai watched him, until the watching made him want. He’d already promised against that. And the only sounds he was like to get out of Suho that night were of pain, not pleasure. So he slept, and dreamed.

***

The burn healed, as did the sting from the stick Kai had hit him with. It still sat in the tent, that stick. It had not left bruises, even, but just seeing it was reminder. It had taken a day before Kai had asked for his mouth, and another before Suho had uncapped the oil, but Kai had been almost gentle. Each morning and night, he sat for Kai, as Kai rubbed the ointment onto Suho’s skin. Every morning, Kai asked him if it hurt, reminded him to take his cloth if he was going outside.

Five days, until Suho had looked up and nearly met Kai’s eyes, and spoke before Kai could ask. “It no longer hurts. And I will do my best to remember the cloth in the future.”

Kai had spread the ointment, and they had not spoken of it again. But Suho had thought he had seen a smile tilting Kai’s lips before he’d averted his eyes and held still. Perhaps Kai enjoyed the thought that Suho had learned his lesson, or perhaps he enjoyed Suho nearly talking back to him. Strangely after being struck, Suho’s fear had not increased. If anything, he had learned a boundary - and that Kai was capable of care. Maybe he didn’t regret punishing Suho, but it would have been his right to have done more. Burning, bruising, anything.

Suho wondered if Kai would strike him again, if he forgot, if the punishment would double. He wondered if it would take only a word to put him in his place, Kai satisfied. He sat, in the moments he had where he was not moving, and he repeated to himself his age, his name. He had not always been Suho, guardian of the temple. Many had names of their past, secret names in their hearts given to them by their parents or a mentor. His name was Joonmyun, and he did not think there was one living on the earth that knew it besides him. No matter what, though he had had everything taken from him, he had that. And his fingers touched the cuff on his wrist, the metal and age-smoothed leather. It had been on him long enough that he nearly did not notice it. It defined him, a slave of Kai, but it spoke nothing of him, the one who had to wear it. Perhaps that was a blessing in a way, proof that though he belonged to Kai’s tents, he did not belong in them.

But Kai had a habit of touching that cuff as well, sliding his hand along Suho’s arm, humming as though he was pleased with what he found, at the impermanent mark he’d left on Suho’s person. In moments like those, Suho was glad that Kai had not wanted to mark him permanently - with a brand. Sehun had a mark like that, a white-faded scar that had been left on the outside of his shoulder from before he had been weaned. Not Kai’s doing, but someone like him. Suho bore the mark of his Sight, a water drop darkly marked into his inner thigh, but that was all.

“How long have you been in my tent?” Kai asked, letting go of Suho’s arm after Suho had cleared away their dinner.

Secretly Suho had been making marks in a stick kept beneath his blankets, so the details of the days and the way his life had changed were intimate to him. It did not surprise him that Kai did not know.

“Nearly a moon phase. Master.”

Kai hummed, looking up at him. “And what in this tent is yours?”

It took a moment for Suho to find his voice, the question a bit ridiculous to him. “Mine? The clothes I wear are yours, and I could work without them. My bed is yours, since I could sleep on the ground. The work of my hands is yours.”

Suho cautioned himself not to recoil as Kai stood, because he knew that displeased Kai even more than Suho speaking when he should not.

“Suho. I would not take your bed from you. Nor your clothes. Though I very much like you without them.”

Suho cursed his body, that Kai’s breath against his neck made it heat and fill. Each night of Kai’s urging his pleasure had brought him to that. He’d learned that making sounds when he enjoyed something was the surest way to see it repeated - not making sounds when he thought that Kai wanted them. When Kai was stroking his chest and brushed his nipples, his sounds had made Kai not stop until Suho had come all over the floor. Moment by moment he found out what pleased him, what Kai did that he liked. Kai had begun to touch him more, chest and stomach, thighs, shoulders. Kisses across his back and neck that had his stomach going tight. Instead of dreading Kai motioning to him, or telling him to be ready, he began to watch for it. At least, when Kai was against his back he found his pleasure. His mouth was still Kai’s to use as he pleased, without thought to Suho’s want. But it was better. Sometimes Kai would change his mind and tell Suho to prepare, and then take Suho with the taste of Kai still in his mouth.

All the water goddesses forgive him, sometimes he liked that most of all.

Kai’s hand opened in front of him, drawing his attention to the round copper coin in his palm.

“Do you know what this is?”

“A coin to buy with,” Suho said.

“Yes,” Kai said, and he pressed it into Suho’s palm instead. “It is your coin, to do as you wish. Take it to the market. Buy something that pleases you. You have done well. You will always have clothes and food and a place to sleep. But if there is something that moves you, you can have it. We surely have an empty trunk for you to put extra clothes Sehun finds for you, or the dye for your hair.”

It was a measure of trust. Not that Kai could not go through a trunk, but it was a hidden place, a personal place. With the money, Suho could buy a weapon if he so chose. Medicine. Poison. Though perhaps not, with the cuff on his arm that marked him as a slave. The coin was not of much value, more of a token. And still, Suho was thankful.

***

The coin felt peculiar in his hand as he walked, and he kept his hand deep in his pocket so that it could not be seen what he was touching. The last thing he wanted was for it to be taken from him, or stolen. Kai had been right. He had nothing of his own. The clothes, he supposed, in theory were his. But they could be taken away at any time. So could whatever he bought. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted, what the coin he had would buy him. He wanted another comb for his hair, one that wasn’t broken in three pieces. He wanted salve for his hands because they grew rough from washing. But he would ask Sehun about that, because perhaps that would be provided. He could buy cloth to work, or paper. But he had no need of paper, and no one to write to. He could write his own thoughts, but that seemed dangerous if Kai were to find it. What he longed for were scrolls, or bound books. Something he could pass the time between tasks with. True, he was glad to help Sehun when the oppressiveness of the empty tent grew too much, but his mind was hungry. All Kai had were dry ledgers and accounts.

Still, he eyed the fruit stall with interest. A cool piece of fruit on a hot day would be welcome. But he decided to find at least the price of a book. If he did not have enough that day, then perhaps he would be able to save his coin, add to it. At least he would have purpose to work towards.

But he never made it to the tent of the bookseller.

“You, slave. Stop.”

Suho thought at first the man was talking to someone else, until the man pointed at him. He stopped, not knowing what to do. As a slave, he had no way to refuse. Even if the man was not his master, he was a free man and above Suho in status.

Though he remembered Sehun’s warning - if a man tried to order him into his bed, or try to hurt him, he should run.

They were in the middle of the lane leading into the market. He could not be easily dragged away, and he knew there were some men who enjoyed harassing slaves away from their masters. It shamed them as men.

“I thought you were Kai’s slave. Where do you think you are going?”

“The marke—“

“Why are you skulking around with your head covered?” the man asked, throwing back Suho’s hood. “Trying to run away, I think.”

“No!”

“I didn’t give you leave to speak, slave.”

The slap from the back of the man’s hand was startling, and Suho had to scrabble at the cloth to keep from being choked as the man yanked the hood from his head and shoulders.

“Wrapped up like a little bird.”

“By my master’s order—“

“Quiet!”

Suho’s balance gave at the shove, sending him hard to the ground. He was still trying to get his bearings, gather breath, when the man’s foot came down on his stomach. Not hard, just hard enough to startle him and hold him down.

“Slaves don’t know their place any more,” the man said as attention started to be drawn. “Talking back. Running around like they’re free men.”

He’d been answering a question.

Suho looked up, and saw Sehun rounding the tents. He stopped short seeing Suho on the ground and wheeled - running. Running, Suho assumed, for Kai.

“You are not my master,” Suho said. His home was a tent a few minutes walk away. His place was serving Kai. His name was Suho. Maybe he owned not even the clothes on his back, but he owned that. Whether he was a slave for five days or five years, or the rest of his life. He owned that. All the interests he’d had before, the desires of his body, the food he wanted, those were his. They were not, could never be Kai’s. But until he was his own again, he had his place. And his place was with Kai. 

“Let me go home.”

Not to the temple and the quiet stone and the pain and the indifference. To Kai’s tent.

“I don’t believe you’d go.”

Suho hissed as the man probed his pockets, not daring to move. Checking for weapons, perhaps. They were attracting a small crowd and his cheeks burned with shame and anger.

“Please. Let me go home.”

“Release my slave.”

Some of the tension left him at the sound of Kai’s voice, the command in it, and then the slimy slither of the man’s voice as he backed away from Suho.

“He was being suspicious. Skulking around with his head covered as though he was trying to hide.”

“His skin is tender from years in shadow, and from being burned. It was my order than had him dressed so. Release him. If he has caused trouble, it is my duty to see to his punishment. But I dare any to say he caused harm.”

Suho scrabbled for his cloth, clutching it to him as Sehun helped him to his feet.

“He speaks back without shame, child,” the man snapped.

“In protecting himself from you, he is protecting himself for me,” Kai said. “Do not touch him again.”

It was only by staring at Kai’s heels from where he and Sehun had drawn back to, did Suho realize that Kai was turning, moving, ignoring the man as he tried to argue back. Sehun grasped his arm and led him until he found his own gait, his own bearings. And then Suho truly began to breathe again, anger sipping at him in a way that he tried to soothe back. The anger felt better than the fear, but as he stared at Kai’s tense back, felt Sehun’s hand on his arm, there was gratefulness rising in him as well.

Kai and Sehun traded a look, and Sehun left them before Suho followed Kai into their tent. When Kai sat on a low stool, Suho knelt by him, fingers still twisting in the dusty cloth.

“Tell me everything that happened,” Kai said. “From the moment you left here.”

Suho swallowed hard, and began. How he had left, how the man had stopped him, and the things he had said.

“I tried to answer his questions, but he would not let me,” Suho admitted. Perhaps he had spoken back at Kai, but nothing close to the insolence that the man had accused him of. Even a child would answer when asked a question. Even a dog would.

Kai did not look less severe but nodded as Suho explained what had happened. “Some men bully slaves because they can. He knew if he had hurt you even a little more, I would have been in my right to ask for compensation. Maybe I should anyway.”

Kai touched Suho’s cheekbone, where the worst of the pain was. Perhaps there was a mark there. He resisted reaching up to touch it himself, though he winced if only to feel it.

“Would it create an enemy for you?”

“Perhaps,” Kai said.

Compensation. The man had held him down, searched him, and in his fear—

Suho put his hands to his pockets in panic. “He took the coin!”

It was blurted without thought, and then shame came after. The coin Kai had given him, trusted him to look after, and Suho had lost it. No, he’d had it taken from him. But the flush was still tinged with shame.

“That’s right, you were going to the market. What were you going to buy?” Kai asked, his voice going bright for the first time. And when Suho was silent, he prodded again. “Suho?”

“I thought fruit at first, but…” Suho exhaled. “A book. If it wasn’t enough, I was going to save it until I could.”

And then he had nothing. There was nothing to save. Just empty pockets. But there would be other coins, or so he hoped. For a moment he worried that Kai would forbid him owning a book, and then realized he could not worry of it. If he had bought one, and Kai had burned it, then nothing would have changed. It was not something he could have secreted away in a bush or under a pot.

“I forget you can read,” Kai said, and Suho dared look up at him. His eyes were thoughtful, and Suho looked down again. He did not seem overly angry about the coin, and Suho did not know what to think of that. Perhaps, the coin was of little account to Kai - he had given it to Suho and was therefore nothing to consider. He could have lectured Suho on letting it be taken. The coin was perhaps nothing to Kai, but it had been so very much to Suho.

“I can do sums as well,” Suho said. “It was required of us. I am lucky.”

“Yes. Not many such slaves can read beyond perhaps the name of their master. Anyway. Do not let it worry you,” Kai said as he stood, his hand briefly on the top of Suho’s head. “If he bothers you again, he will not like the consequences. I’m riding out now.”

Suho nodded, staying knelt as Kai left the tent. And then he went to find Sehun.

Sehun, arms deep in washing, gave a little smile as Suho stepped into the tent.

“You’re well?”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

Sehun shook his head. “It was luck, only. I do not usually pass to the market at that time of day.”

“Then perhaps it was more than luck,” Suho offered. “Because you were also able to find Kai, who should have ridden away by then.”

Sehun hummed. “He would not have hurt you there in public. Too many eyes.”

“Men who bluster as he does are weak.”

“If you would have cowered for him, he might have let you go.”

Suho scowled at his hands. “It is not in my nature to fight, but the thought of that brings no satisfaction to me. But I will remember that next time. Pride is not hard to sacrifice when it’s wellbeing on the line.”

Suho stepped forward, helping to steady the rollers to squeeze water from cloth.

“Kai was angry,” Sehun said. “When I found him, told him a man had knocked you down in the market and was threatening you. He cursed and ran.”

The way Sehun was looking at him was so peculiar that it had his cheeks heating.

“He is a good master?”

And Suho wasn’t certain why he had posed it as a question.

“He is,” Sehun agreed. “Help me to hang these to dry, and I will help with what you have to wash also.”

Good. Something to keep his hands busy. He had some clothes of Kai’s, and the clothes he wore that were dirty from being on the ground, as well as the cloth for his head. Not much, and easily accomplished when there were two of them to share the labor. When the cloth was hung, he turned to Sehun who was standing relaxed, his face at rest.

“Thank you,” Suho said again, and wrapped his arm around Sehun. “I just need to tell you again.”

“Sure,” Sehun said, sounded embarrassed. “Suho… Would you…? The first day, you told me something when you touched my hand.”

And Sehun had told him not to again. “Yes? You want me to try?”

Sehun would not look at him, but he nodded. Suho licked his lips, and took Sehun’s broad hand in both of his. With his closed eyes he breathed, and he Saw.

“His lips are pink,” Suho said out loud. “He is sad to see you running away from him. Oh. Sehun. You were going to see him today when you saw me.”

Sehun’s face was turning red as he pulled his hand back from Suho’s. “Yes.”

“He wanted you to see him. He was anticipating you.”

“It can’t be,” Sehun said sternly, as though Suho was suggesting something that was untrue. “I am a slave, and he is not. Even if he came to my master and asked for my services…”

Sehun looked almost ill. 

“One day? Could he purchase you?”

Sehun shook his head. “Slaves are usually bartered, fought for, or stolen. He would have nothing to trade for me. I wish I had never seen him.”

Suho could do nothing but watch Sehun move away from their conversation in his mind so that they could continue working. There was nothing he knew he could do, except perhaps help Sehun to see the man he wanted. It could cause trouble, and he knew it, as he ducked back into the tent. Still, being a slave there were things that could be done. He knew that. No one could tell Sehun he could not feel what he felt, even if his way was difficult. Perhaps he could take over some of Sehun’s duties, leave him time. But if the man was a merchant, he would be busy during the day as well. Suho sighed, and resigned himself to waiting.

***

Suho half wished he had reason to go to the market again that day, just to show himself, and perhaps Kai as well, that he could. Maybe it was arrogance, the fact that he found some security in knowing who he was even with the fact that he belonged to someone else. He could own that, own his reaction to Kai’s body, his attention to Kai’s pleasure. He could be Suho the man and not Suho the slave at times, and until that day he had nearly forgotten that.

Instead, he took care of chasing dirt and sand out of the carpets, and fetching Kai food after he’d returned from his ride. He ate too, quickly, anticipating that he would need to bring in the newly-cleaned clothing to store it, and making sure the lamps were adequately full. There were any number of little tasks to keep him occupied, most that he enjoyed. There was a certain joy in the solitude, as much as there was in turning his efforts in tune with Sehun. Kai was in and out of the tent that afternoon, trading few words with Suho except to point out something else for Suho to do.

It would’ve chafed, once. Mostly, it amused him to wonder what Kai would do if left to caring for his own belongings. Though even thinking that had Suho feeling into his pockets, as though the coin would appear again, like he had missed it in a fold of cloth. He could have had something, anything of his own.

The tent was empty when Suho ducked into it, the blanket he had beaten rolled against one hip. Kai had been right, as it had been well full of dust, but it was a dirty chore. He stored it against one wall, where supplies and his pallet were kept. And Suho frowned at the cream-colored cloth that was stark against his dark blanket. There had been nothing there that morning, and nothing before he had left on his chore.

He pulled the cloth off from around his neck, and knelt as though the packet on his bed would bite him. 

“You’re being silly,” he told himself.

It wasn’t as though the packet was moving, and the only two people in the tent that day had been Kai and himself. He grasped a corner of the cloth and pulled, eyes eager, but unsure of what mystery would be revealed. More work, was a possibility, but his held breath turned into a gasp at the sight of a corner of folded leather.

The cloth came away with a yank, revealing a book wider than his hand and bound in pale leather. And then it was cradled in his hands, and held against his face so he could breathe in the scent of it. He didn’t know what the title was, what the contents were, but he was holding a book that he assumed not to be full of numbers. The smell was bitter, but it was sweet to him as he opened the book to the neatly-printed pages. It had been hand-copied and bound, a traveler’s collection of tales, and Suho made a low sound. The pages were more than two of his finger’s deep. He could hardly fathom it.

And the sound of horses outside the tent had him scrambling up, putting the book on his trunk and turning as Kai ducked through the entrance.

He bowed, because he didn’t know what to do, what to say, and he knew that Kai saw him.

“I see you found the book.”

“I did,” Suho said, and breathed for a long moment, stepping forward to take a wooden bucket from Kai’s hands.

“No thanks for it?”

“I did not know if—“

If he should, if it had been Kai, if any number of things.

“Yes, it was me,” Kai said, nearly smirking. “You answered my questions truthfully, so it seemed fitting. You’ve done well.”

Suho bowed his head that time. It was more precious than any coin to him, and he looked toward the book. “Thank you.”

He could have said it a dozen times, but the clang of the bell that announced the evening meal was ready had him jerking upright. He wan’t sure what made his face heat as he hurried to fetch the food, or why he found it so hard to look at Kai as he did. Kai had almost certainly chosen than book with his own hand, had it wrapped, and placed it where Suho would find it. Maybe he’d chased Suho out to beat the blanket just for that purpose. It made him want to laugh, and bounce a little, and block out everything except for the book. But there were duties first. The book was not something to see him forget his place. It was just as easily taken away from him as it was given.

He wondered if there was a smirk on Kai’s face as Suho gave Kai his food, and Suho ate eagerly, waiting for Kai to be done before clearing his table and bringing him the ledger he wanted. When the dishes had been cleaned, and Kai’s ledger closed, Suho prepared for their nightly ritual to clean Kai from his day.

“You touched that book with more tenderness than you regard even your food,” Kai observed.

Suho wasn’t sure what to reply, as he helped Kai from his shirt. It came away from his skin sticky with sweat, and Suho went for the basin to fill it with water. Cool enough to refresh without being chilling to the skin. Kai sighed as Suho ran the cloth over his back, wiping away the remains of the day, dust and sweat. The cloth smoothed over Kai’s arms, across his chest. 

“That feels nice. It was too hot out there today, too dusty. I think even the horses wanted to find shade or plunge into the water,” Kai said. “I have half a mind to do that soon myself.”

It did sound nice. Even in the shade of the tents, the heat was draining.

“Is it strange to you?” Kai mused. “To clean me this way.”

“No,” Suho replied, and his voice was sure as he knelt and smoothed the cloth along Kai’s calves. “At the temple, it was considered as serving each other. It was a bond of those in servitude to the temple, and to their elders.”

Kai sat then, letting Suho finish cooling his legs, and to begin rinsing the dust from his feet.

“This will let me rest well,” Kai said. “I will have need only of your mouth tonight.”

Suho was both relieved, because he was exhausted, and disappointed. He felt anxious even with his newfound sense of self, and yet he could show Kai with his mouth as well, how much more assured he had become. Kai had given him a book, but Suho had gained more than that.

He did not hesitate, shifting the thin covering from where he had already washed, and stroking Kai with his hand.

“You seem different,” Kai mused. And when Suho did not respond, Kai hummed. “Him hitting you… He said you defied him. I thought it was excuse. Suho?”

He couldn’t even believe his mouth was opening. If Kai beat him again, so be it, but he could not hold it in. If Kai enjoyed another’s pain—

But he had not shown that. He had not, and Suho spoke.

“I belong in this tent. You are my master. I am Suho. It may be all I have, but no one can take that from me.”

“You felt as though you had nothing left before? I can see how you would. If I found myself a slave, I would cling to my name and identity as well. Is this life harder than what you had?”

Suho shook his head, eyes on Kai’s stomach. “In some ways. But not others.”

Even if it had taken him a while to realize that it was only his existence that was owned, not his soul.

“That’s good. At least in my tent you will never go hungry.”

Considering Suho’s lips had just parted around Kai’s cock, the laugh was immediate. Silent, but for a puff of air, but it was there.

“Was that a laugh? Suho, of my tent laughing? Perhaps it was good that you were stopped.” But Kai shook his head, so violently that Suho could feel it. “No. He should not have hit you.”

No, there was that. Perhaps another man would have thought his slave deserved it. It was that fervor, that had him dropping lower than he had ever gone, trying to take Kai deeper, as deep as his mouth would allow without choking. Letting the suction of his lips be tighter, as he dragged his head back, and hearing Kai’s moan.

“Will you be afraid to go to the market again?” Kai asked, and Suho nearly shivered to feel Kai’s hand on his head. But he rocked his head to the side, to indicate no. “Good. Care for that book well. When you are finished, take it to the bookseller and give him my name. You will be able to choose any there in exchange, except for the rarest ones.”

Suho stopped still, his head half lowered and lungs full. He hadn’t heard that right. There was no possible chance that Kai had just said that he could read the book on his trunk, and exchange it for another. And another.

“I thought that would please you,” Kai said. “But I didn’t think it would make you stop.”

There was slight censure there, among the amusement. Suho let his mouth and cradling hand move quicker, until his lips were sore and his tongue tired, but he gained strength from Kai moans. The hand on his head, fingers tight in his hair but not pushing or pulling, merely holding. For some reason it sent tingles down his back, his own body filling with need. There had been stirrings before, such a sexual act of course, but nothing like the throbbing he felt. He needed, craved, Kai’s end. To where he moaned, as Kai’s body shook and Kai came against his tongue and for his sucking mouth. He sucked in time, drawing out Kai’s pleasure, and feeling the flush of accomplishment. But he also knew there would be no release for him that night, but for his own hand under his blanket - after Kai had fallen asleep.

“That is the best you have ever done,” Kai said, his voice just a bit rough. “And all it took was a book.”

It had taken more than that, and he thought they both knew that.

When he pulled away, he felt wet drip down his chin before he could stop it. But Kai was there before he was, running his finger up Suho’s chin and then offering it for Suho to lick clean. He took Kai’s fingertip in his mouth, lathing it with his tongue, and for some reason the sound Kai made surprised him. He’d had fingers in his mouth before, to gag him, and yet, as Suho sucked on Kai’s finger, Kai reacted as though he were sucking on his cock again. It slid from between his lips, wet and clean, he watched as Kai crooked it.

“Much more of that, and I’d have been asking for your mouth again,” Kai said.

It made him feel oddly pleased, that he could accomplish that, and he decided to accept that feeling rather than scold himself. He considered Kai’s chest, his nipples. He wondered if Kai would like his mouth there. Only one other man had touched Suho like that, but the first squeezes that had almost felt good, had turned into painful twists as the man took him.

And remembering that cooled his arousal as Suho stood on stiff legs to take away the basin of water, and rinse it so that it could be used again the next day. As he wiped it clean, set it to dry, he imagined Kai coming after him, kneeling behind him and sliding his hand into Suho’s pants.

_“It arouses you to please me?”_ Kai would ask, seeing how aroused Suho had been when he walked away. _“Let me please you.”_

Even just with his hand. The thought had him shifting, standing and tossing the cloth into the pile to be washed. But Kai was not watching him, had not come after him to make him throb. Instead, he was in his bed, half under the covers. And fast asleep.

It made him sigh as he carefully shoved Kai’s leg under the blanket, pulling the top up Kai’s chest. It was a strong face, even in sleep. But he looked deceptively young that way, his mouth parted. Suho blew out the hanging light, before he could think any more on Kai’s mouth. No matter his errant fantasies, Kai’s mouth was not for him. He was a slave. He wanted the books that Kai had promised more than he wanted Kai’s attentions to his pleasure.

Or he told himself that, as he crawled into bed and tried not to whimper as his body relaxed. He slept, unfulfilled, with his fingertips touching the book’s spine. There was that, at least.

***


	3. Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.

***

The duties that Suho expected to perform were not few, but those were done under Kai’s sometimes passive inspection, and done nonetheless. Having Kai at top form was what he expected, even if rising from his bed with the sun wasn’t what Kai enjoyed. He’d served the morning meal to a tousle-headed Kai with sleepy eyes and downturned mouth more than once. Most mornings, if he was honest. Though the only difference between how Kai greeting the morning, and how Sehun did, was their stations in life. Sehun might have seemed gloomy but he had little choice in the matter.

Still, Suho heard a pitiful little cough from the bed the third time he had been in and out of the tent. It was later even than the latest time Kai had risen.

“Suho.”

The whisper, more of a croak, had Suho putting down the clothes he carried and rushing to the side of the bed.

“Are you all right?” he asked, frowning as he took in Kai’s flushed cheeks.

“Throat hurts,” Kai breathed. And then he took a long, wet inhale through his nose.

Ah. Not even masters were above getting sick.

“I’ll go see if Sehun has medicine, and tea, and hot soup,” Suho said. And he put his hand out, pausing as Kai blinked up at him. “May I?”

When Kai nodded, Suho pressed his palm against Kai’s forehead, against his cheek and neck. And Kai sighed, leaning into the cooler touch. He was warm, but not overly. He’d seen a man rage with fever that even the water couldn’t cure. All he could do was see to Kai’s comfort, and hope he would mend.

“I’ll be back soon,” Suho promised him.

“Is he still not up?” Sehun joked, when Suho came back into the work tent.

“He’s not feeling well. Too warm, pain in his throat.”

Sehun frowned immediately. “Ah. I know what he was willing to drink the last time.”

“Does it happen often?” Suho demanded, trailing after Sehun. “Was he all right?”

“He lived, if that is what you’re asking. It took a couple of days, but he felt better.”

“But the throat can be dangerous.” And it made Suho’s breath catch to think of it. When the body fought itself, there were so many things that could go wrong.

Kai had gotten himself up and dressed by the time he and Sehun returned, and Kai ate at the table. Still, Suho watched as Kai winced and drank so gingerly. Fever could cause collapse, or worse. And he bit his tongue, even as he helped Kai to tie on his high boots for riding.

“Are you sure you feel up to it?” And he got no response but a grunt. “I prepared water for you.”

All he could do was hand it over and sit with worried eyes as Kai left. His rational mind knew Kai would be fine. Kai would not fall off of his horse and die, such a fragile thing. That life was delicate, it was true, and he knew from his love of reading a half a dozen ways that he could sicken a man or even kill one. When he had been angry, afraid, in pain, disgusted, he wondered if he had thought of it. How to do so little, which would change his life so greatly. One life.

It would have meant being tied to Kai’s father instead, if Suho was not caught, or his own death. But even in the very worst of it, he had wanted to live. His time with Kai had not changed his mind on that.

And he wanted Kai to live.

Kai wasn’t company like Sehun was, wasn’t easy as Sehun was, but he had become an important part of Suho’s life. Even as he knelt for Kai, he learned more of himself. They were things he could not have learned surrounded by the temple pools and the agony of the donors. He wouldn’t thank Kai for taking him as a slave, but he wasn’t blind the fact that he had possibilities. Things he could accomplish, pleasures he could discover. He knew at least some of those would be with Kai.

Kai looked haggard but not wrecked when he strode in late that afternoon. He took the tea from Suho’s offering hands with a grateful glance, settling at the table with a long sigh. Suho didn’t wait for the request, ducking out of the tent to fetch broth he had been babying most of the day, and a bowl of softened fruits, and bits of toasted bread.

Kai whimpered when Suho put it front of him, reaching for the spoon. And Suho took it as thanks, sitting nearer than he did normally as Kai ate. It wasn’t purely in case Kai needed anything, trying to watch without seeming like he was watching. He didn’t really succeed, Kai looking up at him at least once as though questioning his almost-hovering. Still, it allowed him to pounce the second Kai made to get up from the table. Most days, Kai enjoyed cool cloths but Suho had warm water prepared for when Kai stepped out of his riding boots, out of the loose pants and long-sleeved shirt and tunic. Suho had freedom to touch how he wanted then, smoothing the warm cloth over Kai’s skin as quickly as possible so that he could be dried, dressed in clean clothes, free of the dust of travel.

“You should rest,” Suho said, as Kai shrugged into a clean shirt. “There’s nothing else more important tonight than you resting.”

“Is that right,” Kai asked, looking between his ledgers and his bed.

“That is right,” Suho said, and put all of his conviction behind it until Kai was huffing out a laugh.

“If you are the master tonight,” Kai said. “I’ll rest.”

It pleased him, humming as he pulled back Kai’s covers and made the bed look as inviting as possible.

“I’ll be quiet so you can sleep. I’ll wake you for more soup later,” Suho said.

Kai grunted, covering himself, and, worryingly, shivering a bit as he got comfortable. Suho breathed with him, waiting. It took a few minutes longer than usual, but Kai slid into obvious sleep and Suho let out a long breath.

“He’s sleeping,” Suho whispered to Sehun, when he went to fetch more water. It wasn’t as though Kai would hear. There was porridge ready for when Kai woke from his rest, and Suho already planned to wash the clothes Kai had been wearing, and keep the tent as restful as possible. At least it was not winter, when Suho had to worry about Kai in the cold air as well. But Kai rose an hour after, reliving himself and eating the porridge Suho brought. He spent an hour at his ledgers, leaning heavily on one palm as he scratched at the figures in the book. Suho held his tongue when he wanted most to chase Kai back into his bed. Still, that time came earlier than even Suho expected with Kai raising like he was coming up out of a dozen feet of water.

“I will rest,” Kai said, and Suho nodded, taking the ledger to its shelf and readying Kai’s bed again how he liked it. With the blankets turned and water nearby if Kai required it, Kai groaned as he stretched out and let Suho cover him. There were no requests for Suho to touch him, and Suho had not much expected there to be.

“I can turn down the light, or I can read a while from the book you gave me,” Suho said. “Sometimes it is nice to hear a voice before you rest.”

Kai closed his eyes for a long moment before he nodded.

“You can read a while. What kind of book is it?”

Suho almost laughed that Kai wasn’t sure what book he’d given his slave. But it had still been given, and Suho placed himself next to Kai’s bed with the book and its worn leather binding.

“It tells of travels over mountains with deep snow, higher than the top of your head,” Suho said, and Kai grimaced, shivering at the thought. Perhaps hearing of cold would bring down his fever.

So Suho read, glancing up every so often to see Kai’s eyes open or blinking slowly. He read of trees that seemed to reach the sky and boulders the size of tents, and deer so fleet they leaped the heads of horses. He read until Kai was resting, his eyes closed, breathing even. If he distracted Kai from his misery, he was glad. His bones seemed to creak as he rose, and he smiled, daring to move an errant lock of hair back into place.

Suho passed his hand gently over Kai’s hair. “I pray your dreams are untroubled,” he whispered.

He turned to shutter the lights and find his own rest.

***

In the dark, Kai’s eyes opened, feeling the gentle touch and Suho’s words.

***

He was still in pain, still tired, when he left his tent the next morning. Suho still watched him like a mother bird whose chick was going to run off and Kai almost felt good that he’d escaped without being tied into the bed. Though he wished he could return to it. But there was too much to do, and he kept himself on that path, grabbing Sehun’s elbow and hauling him with him as Kai walked toward where his horses were kept.

“What did you need? Suho brought you your breakfast. Do you feel worse? What’s—“

“I wanted to thank you for telling Suho how to make me feel better yesterday,” Kai interrupted him, knowing Sehun would have kept rattling on.

“Telling Suho what? I gave him the medicine I knew you wouldn’t spit back at him, but he did everything else.”

“What?”

And Sehun actually stopped, pulling his arm out of Kai’s grip.

“He’s your slave, Kai. He sees what you want every day. He came to me worried about you, got your medicine, prepared your meals. He sat watch over broth and porridge for you, and I don’t even know what else when I was busy. Why would I have to tell him what you needed?”

Kai opened his mouth, but the explanation he had didn’t come.

“That’s what I thought,” Sehun sighed. “Now I have to get back because I have work to do. He didn’t want to see you in pain. You’re doing well with him.”

He gaped after Sehun, who did his best to look unaffected as he walked away. He’d just been praised by his closest friend, a slave, about the slave of his tent. A man who, without Kai knowing, had seemed to know him better than Kai thought. He did not know what kind of thanks he could give to Suho, but it made the time spend quicker when he turned his mind to it.

***

What was Kai’s was also his father’s, and that included slaves. With Kai recovered, Suho’s days were even more full. Every single thing that Kai owned was packed, the tent taken down, stowed on several wagons. Suho did not have the luxury, the right, to sit a horse throughout the move of almost six hours, but he got to sit on the back of one of the wagons and watch as others rode. Sehun sat with him, pointing out people, laughing with him as they watched children play. Kai rode back to check on them every so often, and Suho made sure the cloth covering his head was pulled up the whole time.

“You don’t have to mock me,” Suho muttered, when Sehun made to adjust his own cloth for the fifth time in as many minutes.

“He would’t be angry with me,” Sehun agreed, but he still kept laughing when Suho elbowed him. They had food, fruit and bread and cheese, packed for themselves and for Kai. At least it kept the move from being unbearable. Though the packing had been hard, the setting up again seemed endless. Every available slave worked hard throughout all the nearly-erected tents to clean bedding, repair battered tent panels, mend floor covers. Suho was perplexed when he found a coin in the roll of his bedding not unlike what Kai had given him before. He did not know where Kai kept his coins, so he set up a small clay pot on the shelf where Kai’s combs, his books were kept. Three more coins joined it, from the pages of Suho’s book, from a corner of his cleaning cloths. He wondered that he had cleaned so poorly to find coins scattered like that, and how Kai had lost them.

But the work did not end. It was a time for everything neglected to be renewed so that the new camp would be ready for when the seasons would change - and they would not be caught unaware. Suho’s thighs burned from lifting and squatting, his fingers sore from pricking himself with needles and squeezing water from cloth. It was not the first day he had seen Kai’s father, an imposing man just shorter than Kai himself. His face was harder, rougher with age. Suho took his cue from Sehun, bowing and keeping his head down.

“Get back to work,” they were told.

And the pain on his side had his eyes tearing, the sound swallowed only through long experience of muffling himself. Sehun was not so lucky, the grunt passing his surprised lips and a second following it as the stick Kai’s father held touched his back again.

They had never stopped working, except to defer to his presence. They were not a horse that would be urged by a whip. Suho could see the tremble in Sehun’s hands as they finished gathering pots they had scoured with sand.

“What was that?” Suho whispered when they had entered the tent, a hand to his aching ribs.

“I don’t know,” Sehun said. “He has never done that before.”

Within an hour the dark marks were bruising. And by nightfall, they each wore several marks more. Sehun had been hit on a mark from before, and he had fallen to his knees in the tent because of the pain of it.

“We will be done after today,” Suho whispered against the top of Sehun’s head. “Perhaps it is only a test.”

The dinner bell rang, startling both of them. He did not try to wipe the tears from Sehun’s face, though he wanted to. He wanted to draw Sehun a warm bath full of herbs and oils to relax him.

It was his own mistake. He took Kai his food, ate quickly while trying not to breathe too deeply. When he made to rise to fetch Kai water, a bowl he had set too near a ledge spun and clanged. Suho’s head jerked to the side, just in time to see Kai startle.

“What was that?”

“A bowl. I did not mean to.”

Kai stood, coming closer to see what had happened.

“You should be more careful.”

If Kai began to beat him like that as well—

He could not stop the sound from his throat as he cringed as Kai reached for him. But the touch did not come, and after a moment, he dared look to where Kai was standing beside him.

“I have only struck you once to punish you. Why are you acting like that? Stand here.”

Suho stood, overcorrected, and in steadying him Kai did the one thing Suho had not wanted him to as Kai pressed against one of the bruises.

The cry of pain was muffled against one of Suho’s hands, but Kai had not missed it.

“Were you injured during the cleaning? Let me see.” Suho did not try to fight him, letting Kai lift his tunic and bracing himself. “Fuck. What happened?”

“Sehun…” Suho began, and squeaked as Kai’s finger touched skin that was tender.

“Sehun did this?” Kai asked, incredulous.

“No! No. Sehun is hurt as well.”

Kai said something, quick and low under his breath and left Suho standing there, only to return a minute later with Sehun at his heels. In the glow of the candles, the bursts of bruising across Sehun’s back were so visible. Sehun had taken more than Suho had.

“Both of you, right now. Tell me what happened. You did not get hit by a rock slide.”

Suho looked to Sehun, but Sehun was looking at Kai.

“It was your father. He has something new, a stick of some kind. It makes a sound against the skin, and marks like these.”

“He used it to urge us,” Suho added.

“It looks like he used it to damn near break your ribs,” Kai said. “It must hurt to move, breathe.”

Sehun’s chin was set as he nodded.

“I will not let this pass,” Kai said. “He has gone too far. Stay here.”

Suho saw the anger in Kai’s face as he let go of Sehun’s shoulder. When Suho thought of the hard face of Kai’s father, he ran, blocking Kai’s exit.

“Wait. Kai! Please, wait,” Suho said, grasping Kai’s shirt and holding when Kai tried to make him release it. “If you go to him in anger, will he listen? Or will he with reason?”

“He cannot do this to slaves of his own tent, or mine,” Kai said. “You cannot see your own back, but it is little better than Sehun’s—“

“Then make him see reason,” Suho pleaded. “I have known men like that. If you go in anger, he might see you as a petulant boy and close his ears. Please.”

“He speaks truth,” Sehun said from beside them. “Your father would be more determined.”

Where Suho found his courage he did not know. He was already in pain, and what Kai could do to him beyond that he did not know. But it was for himself, and Sehun, and the other slaves he fought.

But Kai grasped his wrist, holding Suho against him.

“You are right that anger is not the way. Sehun, stay here. We’ll be back soon.”

Pulled by his wrist, Suho followed Kai out into the dark, their way guided by tents lit from within and Kai’s knowledge of the camp. Without waiting for approval, Kai pulled Suho with him into the tent he was taking them towards.

“Father,” Kai said, bowing, and Suho bowed hastily with him, kneeling and staying down even after he felt Kai lift.

“What brings you to my tent?”

Suho tried to keep his breathing steady as Kai squeezed his arm.

“I noticed some of the slaves in pain this evening, beyond what they should have been for their work. They look as though they’ve been beaten. My slave, I discovered bruises when I stripped him tonight. Sehun bears them as well. They were working for you.”

“Yes,” Kai’s father said, putting aside his goblet of wine. “They did a good job getting the tents set up and cleaned.”

“Then why is he so bruised?”

“I got a new stick at the market. The seller said it would cause slaves to work faster. It has some kind of snap at the end, so I tested it. They did seem to jump when it touched them.”

As one of Kai’s hands pulled Suho’s face into his side, with the other Kai stripped down Suho’s tunic, exposing the bruises.

“Yes, they did jump. Look at how big these bruises are, how deep. His whole side is purple, and Sehun looks worse. The other slaves I cannot say.”

“I see.”

The sound of the words was hard, as though the criticism was too much. Suho bit the insides of his cheeks, because it was Kai’s battle to fight. Where Kai would give him leave to speak, his father surely would not. Suho inhaled as Kai ran his hand down Suho’s side, and he muffled the cry of pain against Kai’s shirt as Kai pressed one of the wounds.

“With his ribs bruised, he is slow. As hard as that must have hit him, I imagine it could crack ribs easily. I know he is a new slave, but he is eager to work, and Sehun has never shown himself to slack. They will not be able to work as hard tomorrow because of it.”

His father hummed. “Perhaps they will work harder under the threat, but without the touch of it.”

Suho felt Kai exhale. “I think so. I wanted to bring it to you, Father, for your advice.”

“You did say you liked his unmarred skin,” Kai’s father said and walked to them. Suho nearly bit his lip bloody as fingers palpitated one of the spreading bruises. “I see it may be too harsh to use day to day. Good for punishment in situations, perhaps. You were right to bring it to my attention. You will lead these tents well one day.”

“Thank you, Father. I’ll take my leave, now.”

Suho rose from his knees and backed away as Kai turned, and then followed Kai quickly. He walked just behind Kai’s elbow as they returned to Kai’s tents. Suho’s breath came quick, hardly daring to believe that it had worked. But he saw Kai’s reaction reflected through Sehun’s immediate smile.

“He agreed?” Sehun asked.

“He did,” Kai said. “Suho played his part well. His idea was good. If my father had become defensive… He thinks it a danger, as though the slaves will rule us, if we become too concerned of their wellbeing. But injured, you could not work.”

Sehun visibly relaxed. “I have been beaten for misdeeds, but never like this.”

“Yes, this was punishment when you had done nothing to deserve it. If he touches you with it again, tell me,” Kai told both of them. “Otherwise this matter is through. Sehun, you can go.”

Sehun nodded, bowed, and left them, and Kai looked to Suho, who immediately lowered his head. He knew Kai would be well within his rights to punish him for speaking to him as he had, for daring to hold him back. Perhaps the beating he had already taken would suffice in Kai’s mind.

“You have logic in that head of yours,” Kai said, sounding more amused than angry.

“I did not mean to disrespect you.”

Suho nearly shivered at the fingers that slid along his cheek. Not soft, but not rough either, and they tipped his head up so that Kai could see him.

“But do you regret grabbing me, instructing me?”

The alternative was so much worse.

“No, master.”

“Good. You should not.” And at Kai’s words, Suho’s eyes opened. “My father respected that I came to speak with him. Perhaps you do not know him as well as I do, but I could see that. That I came to him, as you said, with reason - that I fought. He respected that. The other slaves should thank you. You have my thanks as well.”

The unnameable emotions inside of him were difficult. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to move to rid himself of the lingering anxiety, or press harder into Kai’s hand for comfort. Which of those he deserved, that was something else. And there was still more he had to ask.

“Can I go to Sehun? It will not take long, but he should have something put on his back to help him heal.”

“Yes. It’s good that he has someone to look after him. When you return… You should heal another day from those bruises. But I would not mind the use of your mouth.”

Suho swallowed, nodded. In a way he was grateful. If he didn’t move too much, the bruises did not pain him. Kai’s weight on his back would undoubtedly have been painful, but the pleasure would have been welcome.

That there was pleasure at all had become somewhat less of a surprise. Being a slave, he’d thought to have little. But he’d seen the anger in Kai’s face when he’d seen the marks on Suho’s skin, on Sehun’s, and the way Kai had stopped to listen to him. Of course, Kai was protecting his property, and Suho’s health was directly related to his worth. But it was not just that. He’d seen anger at the way a tool was broken or an animal hurt. That was not the anger in Kai, as he’d touched Sehun’s or Suho’s side.

It was anger for a human. Not a possession, a person. A person Kai felt responsible for - both him and Sehun, even if Kai didn’t own Sehun. But there was something between Kai and Sehun, something very close to friendship. They’d known each other far longer than they’d known Suho, had almost grown up together from what Suho knew. And Sehun had pleaded on Suho’s behalf, for Kai to listen. He felt almost as though he belonged there, which was such a strange feeling after all that had happened.

The corner of the supplies tent that Sehun called his own was still lit when Suho entered, and he smiled as Sehun looked up in surprise.

“How are you feeling?”

“Hurts,” Sehun said. “I drank some tea, hoping it would help me relax. I found ointment.”

“I’ll put it on for you, if you’ll lie down and relax,” Suho offered.

“He let you come to me?”

“Yes. I asked him to let me. I think he was worried about you as well.”

Sehun made a sound, not necessarily agreement as he spread himself face down on his pallet.

“It is good you can question him. He needs someone like that. But I was worried he would be angry.”

“Yes, for me grabbing and nearly shouting at him,” Suho laughed. “You told me once he was a not a man who would beat me if I asked him a question. I have taken more liberties than those, and he still listens.”

“He hasn’t yet been hardened by life,” Sehun said, sighing as the cool ointment was spread on his skin. “I hope he never is. He wants to show his father he is strong. It’s hard to show weakness.”

Suho hummed, gently smoothing his hand down Sehun’s back. “Concern for a friend or a slave is not weakness. As long as he has us beside him, though…?”

“Yes. Thank you for… For coming to me.”

Suho stared at the pattern of bruises and felt anger and sadness mingle. Sometimes everyone needed someone to look after them, to comfort them. He wondered where Sehun’s mother was, if he had ever known her. But it was not the time to ask. Instead, he spread his hand over Sehun’s warm one. “I do not know what I would have done if you had not been here to guide me. Even in these hard times. To have someone to look to has made many of my days much less terrible than they might have been.”

“You keep Kai busy.”

“Oh, is that all you’re happy for?” Suho joked.

Sehun merely sighed his agreement, and Suho was glad. It meant he was finally relaxing. Suho stroked Sehun’s hair, letting his mind fall to images of peace and soothing. In moments, he heard the deep and even breathing of sleep begin. He covered Sehun with the thin blanket, blowing out the lamp, before making his way back to Kai’s tent.

And back to Kai, who was already half undressed and waiting to be washed. Suho winced. He had forgotten that Kai had been out riding, in the heat all day.

“How is he?”

“Resting now,” Suho said. “His back will be multicolored in a few days, but the pain will fade.”

“Is this ointment for your wounds?” Suho had not even responded before Kai was taking it from him, wrinkling his nose as he sniffed at it. “Some places are hard to reach. Turn.”

Suho drew a fortifying breath, lifting his tunic and bracing himself as Kai spread the thick ointment along injured flesh. He could have trembled, not for pain or for cold, but remembering how Kai had smoothed the ointment on his face after burning it in the sun. It was a touch of care, and it was still not one he had expected.

“Thank you for looking after him,” Kai said as he soothed Suho’s side. “Even without order, you cared for him.”

So many words of thanks that Suho did not know what to do with. He knew Kai had not meant care as in emotions, but physical care. The first couldn’t be ordered. He thought even Kai knew that.

“He works hard for your father and for you, cares for you, and has taught me many things. The slave you see in front of you would not be standing here as I am, if not for Sehun.”

It gave him only heartache to refer to himself as a slave, but it was heartache he could endure in that moment, for Sehun.

“Then you’ve both done well,” Kai said. “That’s the last.”

Suho took the ointment from Kai’s hands, the words of thanks he had trapped in his throat as he retrieved the water he’d had prepared since before all of the commotion. In it, he dipped the cloth he used to help Kai wash after long days.

“A man is lucky to have those around him who can share his burdens,” Kai said. “Do you find your wisdom through your books?”

Suho shook his head as he cleansed Kai’s body. “Though life, and seeing the misery of others. Books are useful, though. Expanding thought.”

“Perhaps some night you can read to me again from your book,” Kai said.

Suho did not disagree, and kept wiping the dust from Kai’s skin. It was so routine, they did not have to speak of what to do. Feeling refreshed helped Kai to sleep, which also meant Suho slept easier as well. But when they were nearly finished, instead of touches that were absent any intention, he stroked and lingered as he steadied Kai’s hip. He had never done that, intentionally tried to feel Kai harden beneath the cleaning cloth, but he wanted to, for Kai, especially that night. He heard Kai’s hums of approval, and it encouraged him. He let the cloth slide back into the water and picked up a dry cloth to smooth over Kai’s skin. By the time he had finished, Kai’s fingers had begun to run through Suho’s hair, and all he had to do was follow Kai to his bed, and take to his knees.

***

The bruises felt worse when Suho woke up, and his sleep had not been easy, trying to stay on his uninjured side or stomach and trying not to stretch. He crept out of the tent, leaving Kai still sleeping and unaware, and found Sehun in much the same condition, hunched and unwilling to move. Suho held up the ointment and saw the relief in Sehun’s face. The ointment would cool the skin, if not take away the deep pain.

“Sehun,” Suho said, anguished for the deep purple bruises, round as a plum and scattered. Where Sehun had been hit twice, it looked almost black, the two bruises melded and spiraling out. They sat together, and he spread the ointment for Sehun as gently as he knew how.

“Did you sleep as poorly as I did?” Sehun asked.

“If you mean, did I jerk awake every time I put pressure on a wound, yes,” Suho said, and heard Sehun’s quiet huff of laughter. “Surely it won’t get worse.”

“It depends on what we have to do today,” Sehun said, his voice grave. “Did you apply ointment? I felt bad because I didn’t tend to you last night, when you made your way to me.”

“Kai applied it last night,” Suho said, and turned after giving Sehun the pot of ointment. He sighed in relief as Sehun’s fingers smoothed on the thickened liquid. “He did his best to be gentle. I was…grateful he made the effort.”

“You are not just a beast of burden or a body to use to him,” Sehun said. “You shouldn’t be surprised by that.”

“I’m not, not truly. I just don’t want to lose my appreciation for it, I guess,” Suho mused.

The morning breakfast bell rang, the one thing sure to wake Kai, and Suho hissed he stood, putting his hand on one of Sehun’s un-bruised shoulders.

“Do your duties tax you much today?”

“There is carrying to be done,” Sehun said, shrugging, before he pulled his tunic back on over his head. “It will hurt, but I’ll have to stand it.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

The bell rang again, and Suho sighed “I’ll go fetch food for Kai. Maybe we can help each other somehow.”

As a slave of Kai’s tents, not his father’s, it was possible he was not subject to what Sehun was meant to do that day. It depended on Kai, what Kai said he needed to do.

“Everything is so different,” Suho said, and even the horizon proclaimed it. “I feel like the only reason I am not jumping out of my skin is because the tent is so much the same. I am not used to this much change.”

“This will feel comfortable to you soon, too,” Sehun said, and stepped up beside him to get food for himself as well. “You’ll get used to the moving around. What waits in your tent, the things you take, those are home.”

Those were home. He smiled at Sehun, and hurried back to the end where Kai was already waiting at the low table.

“You’ll work here, in the tent today,” Kai said, making clear of it as Suho knelt feet away to eat his own meal.

“All right,” Suho agreed, having no urge to argue.

“Did Sehun speak of what he was to do today?”

“Carrying?”

“Ah, the stores,” Kai said. “That’s good.”

Suho wondered how exactly that was good, but he didn’t linger long on it, eating quickly as was his habit so that he was ready to take both their dishes back out immediately after. It let him get ready for the day, ready to straighten up or do whatever Kai had planned. What he didn’t expect as he wiped off the table after Kai had left was Sehun ducking into the tent, frowning.

“Kai told me to come here,” Sehun said, mystified.

“He didn’t say why?”

“Not a word.”

But they didn’t wait in confusion long as Kai and a man Suho knew to be one of the horse masters entered with a large trunk between them. Suho shared a glance with Sehun, and Kai flipped open the trunk after he’d dismissed the man. Inside was a tangle of leather, reins, bridles, stirrups, and who knew what else.

“Needs polishing, and straightening,” Kai said, taking out a couple of pots of what Suho assumed had to be leather oil from his waist pouch and putting them on the pile. “Stay in here, both of you, and finish it all. Do a good job. You need more, you let him know and his men will get this and bring you another trunk.”

It was an order, Kai standing at an angle as he gave it, and Suho twisted his hands together, trying not to smile, trying not to tear up when he realized what Kai had done. It was a job that needed doing, yes, but it was a job invented to keep them from having to move, to hurt themselves further.

“We’ll do well,” Sehun promised, and Suho could only squeak in agreement.

Kai nodded and ducked out, leaving them in what felt like a mountain vault of silence. Suho didn’t even know what to say as he knelt, reaching for one of the jangling bridles and stroking the dusty leather. When he looked over, Sehun had a smile curling his lips. They were not beasts of burden, not either of them.

***

The bruises, as did most all bruises, healed. They turned starbursts of purple, red, yellow, green, tender still but less each day for how deep they had been. Suho breathed easier, slept easier, and his work increased as well since Kai had no more reason to see him protected. He could do anything, including please Kai in every way. The first time Kai had taken him after the move had been a relief, knowing it was not something that had changed despite them being in a new place. He spilled himself before Kai did, and listened to Kai’s moans as he took his pleasure, and it soothed him more than he could say.

Though he still wondered at Kai at times, frowning to see a coin in the basin he used to wash Kai. He knew it had not washed free of Kai’s body. But he shrugged and put it in the jar near Kai’s combs with the others. He intended to inspect Kai’s waist pouch for holes. Kai could be losing his coin in all manner of places where Suho could not find them. But being in a new location made the days seem longer, even if he helped Sehun most of the day.

The times Kai returned to his tent varied, a few times even after the sun had lowered beyond the horizon. Those were the days hardest to wait, poised with his book by a light with nothing left to straighten or clean with the light of day gone. He rose to the sound of horses, the sound of boots, letting out a breath as the tent flap was opened and Kai ducked in. He had food ready, a cold meal with hot tea, to ease Kai’s stomach, and it was very welcome by the way that Kai sat and immediately began to eat.

“Was the ride easy?” Suho wondered, speaking aloud before he realized it, and Kai nodded.

“Easy, but long. The trade for the horses went smoothly. When I tired on the journey back, it helped knowing I’d have food waiting for me and someone to welcome me.”

Kai’s eyes were lazy, amused, and Suho felt his cheeks heat and cursed himself.

“Sit here. Tell me about your day,” Kai said.

He had done so before, sitting close, closer some days when Kai raised his eyebrows and waited until Suho did as he asked and moved almost to the table itself. It was as though Kai could not stand to be in the silence after a long day, asking Suho to fill it even if all Suho had tales of were chasing mice from the storage and scouring pots. He much preferred when Kai was finished eating, when he would talk, gesturing with his hands as he spoke of the rides, the rivers he’d crossed, the daring trades. He made Suho laugh, even when Suho realized he was not there to relax in his master’s presence.

But a cold meal and Suho’s rambles were all that Kai required, or so Suho thought. But when Kai indicated he should ready himself - to fetch the oil and prepare for Kai’s cock, Kai followed him, his cock half hard as he lowered himself onto Suho’s pallet.

“I want your mouth more,” Kai decided, and Suho complied, abandoning the oil and smoothing his hands on Kai’s thighs as he mouthed at Kai’s cock.

Suho knew to lift his head as Kai tried to thrust into his mouth.

“I rode home as fast as I could for this.”

The hands in his hair were soothing, much more so than the jerky motions of Kai’s hips. And he sucked and stroked for all he was worth, hoping to finish so that Kai could relax. But as much as he tried, Kai wasn’t getting much harder. And Kai’s little sounds trailed off to a deep, nasal breath.

Suho let Kai’s cock slid from his lips as he stared at Kai’s slack face.

“Master? Kai?” he murmured.

There was no response, just deep and even breathing. His lips twitched, at least until he realized Kai was on his pallet and not on his own bed, and on top of Suho’s blanket besides. There was little chance of him rousing Kai - he’d only get an angry man - so the only other option was to let him sleep. Suho rose and retrieved a blanket from Kai’s bed and his favorite of his pillows, carefully lifting Kai’s head to place it. With the blanket covering Kai, he found another, older blanket and wrapped himself in it, leaning on the trunk he stored his own belongings in. It was uncomfortable and awkward, but still he slowly fell asleep.

***

Suho woke with a start, a hand curving around ankle bringing him awake.

“You’re still here,” Kai said, as though Suho would have been anywhere else in the middle of the night.

“Master?”

Hours had passed, maybe two, maybe more, but Suho could see when Kai sat up.

“Suho.”

Just his name had him moving, letting Kai rub at his back and sides. With a sharp inhale he reached for the oil when he realized Kai was hard and wanting. He would not fall back asleep that time, and Suho nearly shivered as he readied himself.

“Yes,” Kai crooned at him as Suho smoothed the oil on him, turning onto his side when Kai pressed and giving when Kai pulled him back. He was slick, and Kai nudged against him, pressing until Suho’s body took him, until he could slide deep. He felt half asleep, lying on his side, like it was a dream being woken in the middle of the night for Kai to lie behind him and take him on his pallet. And yet, still his body stiffened and filled as though Kai taking him was enough. He hadn’t found his own pleasure in days, Kai too busy, too tired to ask him to kneel, using only his mouth. And he’d been too exhausted himself to bother.

Kai’s hand brushed over his chest, his skin rasping at Suho’s nipples and nearly making him gasp. Kai’s hips barely paused except to adjust, his breathing harsh in Suho’s ear.

“Suho.” What came next was a series of whimpers just below his ear that had Suho gripping his own cock. Kai moaned but he so rarely let himself show more need than that. The press of Kai’s head against his, his name on soft moans, had his hand stuttering. And yet still, he ejaculated on a low cry as Kai pressed his lips by Suho’s ear, pleasure rushing over him by surprise.

Kai’s voice was rough, “Suho,” and so was his hand pulling Suho tighter back against him. Suho listened and moaned as Kai panted and strained, and on a sound of almost surprise, spilled in him.

“Suho,” Kai breathed, and Suho nearly answered him until several moments later it happened again. “Suho. Suho.”

He remembered what Kai had said. Kai had pushed himself to get home, not for pleasure. Pleasure from him. Pressed against Suho’s back, Kai’s arm still around his ribs, Kai fell asleep breathing into his neck.

Suho nearly did the same, lulled by Kai’s warmth, by the lingering pleasure. But he untangled himself, covering Kai, and tried to sleep again, throbbing, remembering Kai against him.

He woke just minutes after Kai, light filling the tent. And Kai was frowning as he stared at how Suho was resting against his trunk.

“Since I stole your bed, you should have taken mine.”

“I couldn’t have,” he said, appalled even by the idea of it. It was true that when he knew Kai would be gone for several hours, he had stretched on Kai’s bed and imagined resting on something that decadent for a whole night. He’d been on it sitting next to Kai as he read, but it was different than relaxing on it. Sehun would have laughed at him. And it wasn’t as though his pallet was too uncomfortable. He’d gotten used to sleeping on barely cushioned stone, so having padding on softer ground was easy to become accustomed to.

“You should have Sehun help find you another layer of padding,” Kai said, rolling his shoulder around. “I could feel every bump in the earth.”

“I don’t need it,” Suho said quickly, standing as Kai stood. “He shouldn’t have to go through that trouble for me.”

“Did I say it was for you?” Kai asked, bumping Suho’s shoulder with his own. “What if I end up sleeping there again?”

The way Kai laughed, it seemed his little hiccup of laughter hadn’t been as well hidden as he thought.

***

“Suho.”

Sometimes Suho looked up in the middle of the day from whatever task he was at - mending Kai’s pants, brushing dust from furs - hearing Kai call his name. It was embarrassing at first, because he went out, circled the tent, stared as though Kai was just out of sight and hiding around a corner. Sometimes Kai sounded amused, saying Suho’s name on half a laugh. Sometimes Suho heard his name said as Kai had done against Suho’s neck when he had taken Suho in the middle of the night. Suho did not get up to look for Kai at those whispers, furiously pressing the needle through cloth to keep from remembering. Kai who invaded his dreams with touches, soft, caring. Not just the ones where he tended Suho’s wounds, but stroked along Suho’s neck, or cupped his wrist as Suho talked with him.

It startled him some nights when Kai would lean forward across his table and ask Suho’s opinion. Sometimes it was of as little importance as what fruit Suho preferred, and others like what he thought of the price of fruit, of where they would move. He seemed genuinely interested in Suho’s answers, too, even when he pointed out flaws in what Suho said. Sometimes he could tell he was pleased by how Suho answered, if what Suho said was something Kai agreed with. Kai got very involved in what he spoke of some nights, drawing out his ledgers and pointing to how things had been before their last move, how many horses he planned to part with. All of it Suho listened to and absorbed, in case it was something Kai would ask him about later.

The night sounds in the new camp were so much the same, even if they were in the shelter of a different mountain to the north, plains surrounding them. It was different, wells that were closer, and a pond near to Kai’s tent that Kai had directed his tent be set up by. He did not own it, but his status would keep anyone from wandering to it. Kai’s tent, the supply tent where Sehun slept, the tent of Kai’s father, those were the closest. The horses were beyond that, near to a stream of their own. It was a good ground, fertile, grasses long from the summer and more temperate air. It would be good, Kai said, for a month or two, perhaps more. If the snow threatened, they would move further south so that the horses could eat. It was a traveling city all its own, and when he walked in the market or in the rows of tents, Suho marveled at how it had been broken down and put back together.

“Let’s make use of the pool,” Kai said, before Suho could gather the washbasin he used to help Kai clean. There was no coin in it that night, though he’d found one on Kai’s dinner table. There had been no holes in Kai’s pouch when he had checked. “We were lucky to set up so near to it. It should make your washing easier.”

No more hauling buckets from the wells. Though he suspected ease was not Kai’s main concern with as eagerly as Kai stripped to wade into the still water. It went to Kai’s waist, clear and stream-fed with lush grasses growing along the sides. It had a simple, welcoming feeling, and Suho thanked the water for its kindness, letting his own clothes drop before Kai could reprimand him for being slow to follow. He had a cloth, the basin, and still his skin shivered at the coolness of the water. But it felt very much like home.

***

Kai would have plunged into the water and swam, dunking himself with abandon had he been alone. He could see himself doing that after a long ride, clothes and all, and imagined the dismay on Suho’s face at it. Though all Suho would do was get the clothes wet and wash them anyway so he wasn’t sure what the problem would be. Suho was so prim wading out with his basin, and Kai laughed at the obvious shock as the cold water rose up Suho’s thighs.

“Surely you are more used to the water than I am,” Kai said, lifting his hand through the water and flinging droplets at Suho.

“It has been some time,” was all Suho said, and ducked his head when he realized Kai was still laughing at him. Still, he did as he always had, smoothing cloth against Kai’s skin and that night as well, rubbing soothing creams through Kai’s hair and waiting until Kai bent so that he could pour the cool water over him. It felt good, Suho’s fingers massaging his scalp, rubbing against his skin. Better than the water itself, almost, with the lingering heat of the day. As Kai ducked into the water, cleansed himself, he rose to see Suho pouring water over his own head, water streaming down his face and neck and chest.

“We will hardly know ourselves, we’ll be so clean,” Kai teased.

“That’s true. I had not realized how much I had missed this,” Suho said, cupping his hand so that water filled it.

“Were your temple pools not colder than this in the shadows?” Kai wondered, noting how Suho’s skin had pebbled.

“Our pools were stone, and into some of them heated water flowed in the winter. But in the summer it was like this. We could wade in the largest of them, cool ourselves and rest and heal.”

“Heal your bodies.”

Suho seemed to hesitate. “Yes. That is where I went always, after.“

Yes, after. Sometimes the thought of hands on Suho’s body, hurting him, made him tense on his long rides until his horse could even tell his anger.

“Because your patrons had hurt you or because you felt you needed to be clean?”

“Mostly the first,” Suho admitted. “But the second helped.”

“Would you have gone there if I had been your patron?”

Suho shook his head. “Maybe to wash. But you don’t hurt me.”

It was a distinction, and one that Kai would take.

“You have more happy memories of the pools than you do of sad ones, though.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me of one?”

Suho paused, his face thoughtful. “It was a birthday in summer. We were all gathered. And it was a good year, we were able to grow food that year so that everyone had enough. We had meat that night, and we hadn’t for a couple of weeks before. Everyone ended up soaking wet, and full, and we just sat and talked and relaxed. Not even the heat could touch us then.”

A smile had moved over Suho’s face. It was unguarded, happy, and it changed his face. Kai inhaled, and found his throat tighter than he realized. Almost every night he had Suho. Almost every night he felt Suho come beneath him, or enjoyed as Suho pleasured him. But he had never truly seen Suho’s face. And he had never had Suho in any other way. It seemed a shame almost. It had been a long time since he had shared a kiss with someone, or pressed someone back on his bed or even trusted them enough to let them slide between his thighs and take. But Suho who smiled at the water and protected Kai even from sickness - his guardian. He could want that with him. Suho would not speak of it, not share it among the servants as long as Kai asked. There was a trust there, that he’d never had with a slave besides Sehun. Not nearly as personal as that. Once he’d been afraid that Suho would run.

“Suho, look at me.”

Suho’s eyes raised immediately. More at the sound of Kai’s voice, Kai thought, than at the order. But there was something calm, something wise and steady in those eyes. And Suho’s lips, sliding down from their smile, lightly parted.

His arm shot out, pulling Suho forward the foot that separated them. The bowl in Suho’s hands fell to the water, and Suho’s hands grasped for a moment at Kai’s arm, his side, to steady himself. At least, he steadied himself until he knew what he was doing in touching his master without permission. But all Kai cared about was that Suho’s face was close, rivulets of water streaming down from his wet hair.

“I’m sorry,” Suho breathed, thinking that Kai was angry with him.

And Suho stiffened as Kai kissed him, his lips cool and still. Kai kissed him again, urging him to meet him. And again. And again. Kai’s tongue slid between Suho’s lips, and the touch of it had Suho moving, hands raising again to steady himself on Kai’s sides. He gave to Kai’s kisses, letting his neck relax into Kai’s hand and bracing himself against his body. The sounds from Suho’s throat were musical, tiny hums as Kai’s teeth grazed his lip, or a sigh as Kai kissed him again. The way Suho met his kiss, the first tentative touches of his tongue, and the way he went bold as Kai teased him, inflamed him. That he could make Suho forget himself made his fingers curl in power. Had they had oil, he would have taken Suho right there in the water.

He was gasping, shuddered, as he pulled his mouth away and stared at Suho’s swollen lips. Kiss-bruised and parted, hot to the touch, they begged to be kissed again.

“Had you been kissed before?” Kai asked.

Suho’s head shook back and forth.

“Fuck,” Kai commented. And he grabbed Suho’s arm. “Come with me.”

“The bowl,” Suho blurted, as Kai pulled him from the water. And as they passed, “The towels!”

There was no time for bowls, or towels. That would keep. He wanted Suho in his tent, in his bed.

“Where is the oil?” Kai asked. He was still dripping, and Suho left his side to grab the little flask of oil. And Kai took it from Suho’s startled hands. Normally, he left that to Suho. Not that night. “On your back, on the bed. Hurry.”

Suho was not fully hard, but he was aroused, and Kai bit his own lip to keep from just spilling over Suho’s body. His skin was nearly flawless, cast in shadows and so bright against the dark fabric and furs. And he was apprehensive, not knowing what Kai wanted. He had never ordered Suho so. But Suho knew, when Kai knelt between his legs, and his hips lifted to give Kai access to slide slick fingers inside him. His thighs widened and Kai saw the mark there, a water droplet marked dark into the flesh of Suho’s thigh. His fingers brushed it, and Suho shuddered. He would ask of it another time. But not that night.

He watched Suho’s fists tighten in the furs as he nudged their hips together and as Suho’s body allowed, slid deep. He took several shallow thrusts, trying to remind his body that he was in control. His breath huffed out of him as he stared at the flush staining Suho’s chest. He would have everything. Everything. He tugged at Suho’s knees and urged them up around him. And in the same breath he lowered himself, so that he could tease Suho’s mouth with his.

“Touch me,” Kai breathed, and felt more of his control coil away from him as Suho’s hand met his neck, the other sliding onto his back.

That. Just that. Suho’s legs touching him, urging him. Suho’s fingers stroking him and tangled in his hair. Suho’s lips parting for every kiss, and Suho’s moans and the way he tightened around Kai with every breath. Suho responded to every movement, every play of his fingers and stroke of his cock. As Kai’s hips slipped hard against him, he moaned into Kai’s mouth and gasped for air as their lips rubbed together. He wanted to see Suho come for him, but Suho’s body seduced the last bits of control from him. And he thrust, and came with his lips slipping down Suho’s neck. He breathed with his eyes closed, body throbbing and finally his again. He could feel the rapid rise and fall of Suho’s chest beneath him, and the relaxing of his legs.

Suho was stunning. Face flushed and lips parted, his chest lifting as their bodies separated. It seemed Suho’s whole body tensed, anticipating rising and cleaning up, as though Kai were finished with him. Kai had almost gotten all that he wanted. But Suho had wanted, proof of that full and bared to his eyes. Suho, who had not even touched himself as Kai took him. It seemed to beg reward. And if Suho had not been kissed, then it was equally possible - no, even probable - that he had never had the pleasure of another’s mouth. What Suho did for him, he had never experienced. Not after that night.

Kai’s hands spread Suho’s thighs and he folded himself. He could not see Suho’s face, but he heard his gasp, as Kai’s lips slid around him. Flesh that had begun to soften, stiffening for his mouth and fingers. Kai moaned his approval, and Suho echoed him, a sound of surprise, as though it was wrested without his knowledge. And Kai sucked, and teased, and tasted.

“Oh. Kai,” Suho gasped.

And only moments later, Suho began to come for him. Kai didn’t think that Suho even knew what he had said. The times he had said Kai’s name before had been in desperation to get Kai’s attention, or in reference to him as his owner. The first pulse he took in his mouth, and he kept stroking, letting the rest fall on Suho’s stomach. He smiled as he watched Suho gasp for breath, swallow, and let his head fall to the side as he panted. He was almost glistening in the light and Kai eased up until he was hovering over Suho. He cleared his throat, a grin pulling at his face as Suho startled and stared up at him.

And the strangest thing happened. Suho began to smile back at him. In fact, he would’ve fully had Kai allowed it. But he was too busy kissing Suho, urging him to find the taste of his own come in Kai’s mouth. Suho cupped his neck as they kissed, and Kai could not have minded. Suho could have touched him anywhere, right then.

Suho’s mouth was wet and red when he left it, but Suho did not protest or try to hold him.

“I think we need to get cleaned up again,” Kai said, and tugged Suho to his feet. They washed quickly, retrieving the bowl and the towels. As Kai climbed into his bed, Suho turned down the lamp and for a moment almost seemed to glow in the residual light. The bed felt almost cool and empty as Kai turned his face into his pillow. The soft sounds of Suho straightening up lulled him to sleep.

***

After Kai was audibly asleep, Suho sank onto his pallet and stretched out. He stared at the wall of the tent for a long time, touching the tenderness of his lips, the places on his neck and jaw where Kai had kissed or sucked. He had never felt anything like that, never known sex could be anything like that. When Kai took him, when any other man had taken him, it had seemed a means to an end. That night, with Kai’s lips dragging against his, and his hands on Kai’s body, it had felt more like a mating. Desperate and raw, more real than anything he’d ever experienced.

And that Kai had touched him, that Kai had touched him with his mouth, made it all the more surreal.

He must have pleased Kai very much, for Kai to have done that.

But remembering Kai’s mouth on his, Kai’s body pressing him back into the bed, he wondered if it would ever be the same if they went back to the way it had been.

***


	4. Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.

***

Suho got Kai’s breakfast the next morning, watching subtly if he needed anything as he straightened Kai’s bed and prepared for his own day. He waited, hoping for some kind of smile, some kind of acknowledgement of what had happened the night before. It made him want to say something, but he had no idea what. He remembered back to when Sehun had said something about some slaves telling their masters when they wanted. He wondered if he could even be that bold one day, when he discovered again just how things stood between them.

“I’m riding out with my father today, so I won’t be back until nightfall,” Kai told him.

Suho hummed his acknowledgement, not knowing how he should respond given the night before and his thoughts. Kai smiling down at him in his bed.

It nearly had him smiling into the water pail, until Kai came up to him.

“Fuck. Just watching you move this morning. Kneel for me.”

Suho did, staring at the floor as he heard Kai uncap the oil. They wrestled together with Suho’s pants, until they were down far enough for Kai. Kai’s fingers smeared oil but did not press. One moment Suho had been standing, and the next Kai was pressing his slick erection into him. It was slick, there was that. It felt like the first time Kai had taken him, quiet, quicker, without Kai even asking if Suho was ready, if there was pain. There were no words, no kisses, no touches like the night before, just Kai taking what was his. The discomfort became almost numb, and the oil kept him from pain but he braced himself as Kai grunted and came in him.

His shoulders were trembling as Kai pulled from him and stood.

“You did well,” Kai said, his breath labored, a smile tugging at his lips as he touched Suho’s hair. “I’ll be back later.”

Suho had barely scrabbled his pants back up before Kai had pushed out of the tent.

It was Kai’s right to take him however he wanted. Suho knew that. Suho had always known that. He’d done well. It was his duty to do as his master asked, and he’d done well at it. But Kai had barely spoken to him, barely touched him except for the taking, so different than everything since that first week in Kai’s tent. There had been no kisses, no sweet moans of his name or urging Suho to enjoy it. He wasn’t hurt, and he was grateful, but he hated the sick feeling it reminded him of, of being a new slave, afraid, powerless. Kai had reminded him that despite all of the care, he was that same slave that Kai had used at the very start. It had felt like Kai had taught him that there was something more than that, something that had seemed quite beautiful and fragile, and then he had shown Suho again how meaningless it could be.

He didn’t know why he’d expected it, why he’d built it up in his head when he’d known better that it could go back to how it had been before Kai had a thought to Suho’s pleasure. He’d pleased Kai, which on so many days made him happy. He was happy, because Kai was pleased. He was happy.

But he didn’t move. Didn’t move for long minutes, even when Sehun came into the tent. He looked up at Sehun’s sound of alarm.

“I saw Kai leave. Are you okay?”

Suho nodded, still feeling sick.

“Yes.”

Sehun’s hand squeezed his shoulder, crouching beside him. “Did he hurt you?”

Suho shook his head. No. Kai had never hurt him, not like that.

“Then why are you crying?”

Suho swiped at his face with the back of his hand, and it came away wet. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

***

Kai walked to his tent from where he’d left his horse, feeling the rhythm of the ground come back to him. It had been a hard ride, but worth it. They had bartered for a good amount of food, trading away horses and goods. They were things they would need in the wet and cold.

But Kai paused, to see Sehun standing between the tents of his father’s, and his own. Standing as though waiting for him.

“Sehun?”

“Sir,” Sehun said.

“Did you need something?”

“You fought to keep your slave from harm, against your own father.”

“Yes?” Kai said, confused.

“Then why did his tears fall when you left him this morning?”

Sehun ducked into the work tent, leaving Kai standing there alone, mystified.

Kai walked into his own tent, seeing immediately that Suho had heard of their return since food was being set at the low table. It was an apprehensive smile that touched Kai’s face. Usually Suho would greet him, ask if he needed anything after his day and make him comfortable. Instead, Suho stood quiet as he had far before they’d gotten used to each other.

Suho poured him water into the goblet, and Kai stared up at him.

“Do you need anything else?” Suho asked.

“Not now,” Kai said.

Suho did not move stiffly, as though injured, but he moved very deliberately as though he felt Kai’s eyes on him. He did not sit to eat, probably having had his meal already. Sometimes Suho would ask how the ride had been. Or Suho stayed near until Kai would ask Suho to tell him of his day. Something was definitely wrong. Kai put it from his mind as he ate, but as he finished, he saw the look of stubborn concentration on Suho’s face as he sewed.

“Suho, come here,” Kai said, and rose, stepping out to wait the mere moments it took for Suho to stand in front of him. Kai ran his hands over Suho’s shoulders, squeezing at them. No matter Sehun’s words, he had to wonder if something happened during the day. “Have you been hurt?”

He could actually see Suho thinking about it, shaking his head in confusion. “No?”

“Your day wasn’t troubling?”

“No, Master, the day was fine,” Suho said, and his voice was so stiff, so precise.

Suho the night before had smiled at him. Suho in front of him would not even lift his head to look at him. Suho had cried after he had left, Sehun had said. It angered him that he didn’t know why.

“Tell me what’s troubling you,” Kai said, putting some force in it so that Suho would answer him. “Was it me? Did I hurt you this morning? Tell me.”

Suho didn’t cringe but he did close his eyes. Kai inhaled deeply in lieu of shaking Suho or commanding him to speak, and in only another moment more Suho opened his eyes and stared at Kai’s chest.

“You had never taken me like that before, without allowing me time,” Suho said, his words halting.

“Then I did hurt you.”

“No! You surprised me. My body is used to you. My mind—“

Suho had been standing there, soft eyed, soft mouthed, and all Kai had been able to think of was Suho moaning his name. Suho had never refused him. But Suho did not speak of refusing him.

“Then I was too quick,” Kai reasoned.

“No.”

“Suho. Your riddles give me no answers. What do you mean?”

“You said kneel, and you took,” Suho said, his voice measured and controlled, even as his hands balled together. “Without making sure I was ready. Without saying anything. Anything.”

“What would you have had me say?” Kai asked, mystified. “I was to be riding out the whole of the day, and my mind was full of bedding you the night before. I couldn’t ride out with my father with my cock upright, able only to think of my slave. I had only minutes before I had to leave. I had no time to coax you.”

“I am your slave. I need no coaxing,” Suho said.

Kai laughed, because he had no idea what else to do. “Apparently you do. Tell me what I should have said. Tell me what would have eased your mind since I didn’t hurt your body. Suho.”

“They are things not said between master and slave.”

“I don’t care. Tell me.”

“That you needed too much to wait. That you had no time. Could I help you. Was I ready for you.” And Suho shook his head violently. “You needed no permission or to ask if I was ready. It was your right to use me as a thing, like you did when I first arrived. However, whenever, you wish.”

And Suho had finally said it, the part that had bothered him. Kai heard it on the way Suho said “thing” as though it were dirty. As though Kai had used him as though he were a comb, or his fork. A thing he could pick up and use at will, and discard alone until he was ready for it again.

Kai’s hand grasped harder at Suho’s shoulder.

“You are not a thing to me. You are not,” he said, when Suho’s head ducked. “You are the closest thing I have had to a friend in a slave, besides Sehun, and I have known him since we were children. I have asked you before if you were slick enough, if it pained you. You know I want no harm to come to you. Would you have turned me away if I had asked this morning?”

Suho shook his head. “No. I could not have.”

Could not have. No. A slave could be beaten for turning away his master, and Suho had seen the ugliness of beating in his father’s tents. Kai pressed his lips together. “Perhaps. But would you have felt…used? If I had asked you to kneel and told you that my time was short, but that I would return to take you in my bed again. If you were ready.”

“No,” Suho said. “I would not have felt used.”

“My time being short was not apology. It was regret. That fuck was only part of the need I have for you,” Kai said, and it was some kind of confession. He needed more than just the pleasure Suho’s body could bring, and in some ways that frightened him. He would not have been looked down upon for allowing affection for a slave, but there were limits even then. He had not even thought of how Suho would react, had assumed that between them things were unspoken. It turned out that Kai was the fool, and whether he had hurt Suho’s body or not, it didn’t matter. Slave or not, he wanted and needed Suho to trust him. Trust, respect, loyalty. They could not be ordered, only earned or lost.

But he knew there were more things he needed to say, things that were not his entitlement to Suho’s body, even as his face flushed in something like shame.

“Would you forgive me for thinking only of my own needs?” Kai asked.

“You don’t need—“

“I want it,” he pressed. And realized that sounding as though he demanded it would not get him it willingly. “When you can give it. But you have my word. It will not happen like that again.”

Suho nodded slowly, his acceptance of Kai’s words. Kai watched as his lips pressed together, parting again and closing, as though he wanted to speak and was thinking better of it.

“Is there something you want to say? Speak freely.”

Most slaves would not have spoken as Suho had already. But as exasperated as Suho had sometimes made him, he would not have changed that.

“If you find your want rises when the time is short, I would have you do as you wish to me. I would be prepared for that now. You should not ignore your needs, or put them off. Or find another person, another slave, to sate them with.”

“There will not be another slave,” Kai said, hoping to quell Suho’s worries on that. “You don’t have to agree to my every whim in fear of that.”

Some masters shared their slaves, and Kai imagined a man walking into his tent, forcing Suho to kneel for someone else on Kai’s command.

He merely snorted as he ran his fingers down the soft skin of Suho’s cheek. As though he could allow it. As though another man touching Suho with Kai’s consent would ever happen.

“No one else. Look at me,” Kai said, and waited for Suho’s eyes to lift. “No one else.”

Suho absorbing that before speaking. “I understand.”

Understood, not agreed, or was glad. It sent insecurity shifting through him.

“Is there someone else? Someone you desire? I know Sehun has his merchant, but—“ He could see he’d startled Suho with that knowledge. “Yes, I know of them. Sehun has been with my father’s tents most of his life. Most of mine. He’s loyal and hardworking, and he deserves the happiness he can have.”

“Would your father beat him for…?”

“I don’t think so. But he would forbid it. A merchant could sway Sehun’s loyalty, inflate prices. Sehun brightens when he speaks of him.”

It almost embarrassed Kai to say it, the fondness in his voice. He had not meant to share so much, show so much. But Suho knowing he spoke to Sehun, was close to him, was not something he was unhappy about. It was a secret perhaps he should not have kept. It did not weaken him.

“He does become happy at the thought of seeing his merchant,” Suho said, his fingertips brushing above Kai’s tunic, and at his collarbones. His eyes rose, gaze steady. “There is no one else I desire. I promise you that is truth. Only you.”

Kai’s breath nearly stopped in his chest, eyes going wide, mouth opening to breathe as he took all of Suho in, lifting his hand to cup Suho’s face. That morning he had caused Suho’s tears. That night, he had the possibility of replacing them with something better. It was not a master that took him without regard that Suho needed - that Suho wanted. He could be that man for Suho.

“Can I show you what plagued me this morning and made me want?”

“Yes,” Suho said, his bowed lips parted, gaze on Kai’s mouth.

And he pressed it against Suho’s, kissed him as he had wanted to every time he closed his eyes. Suho leaned into him, mouth opening for him. Kissing him. Desiring him. Suho was not a thing, and even if he was a slave he was a man with wants, and dislikes, and feelings. Feelings Kai had trampled, after Suho had given him something very precious. And even after that, Suho looked at him with such hope like he felt Kai would redeem himself. He’d open his ears, next time, his eyes.

A sound not unlike pain left him. Desire to do everything at once. Kiss Suho. Kiss his body, his skin, where he was hardest and wanting. He wanted to turn Suho and take him. To take him on his back with slow kisses. To pull Suho above him and know Suho in him as well.

Suho desired him. He had not asked Suho to tell him that. Suho had told him willingly.

“Come to my bed,” he said, voice rough as he tore his lips from Suho’s. But it was far from command.

Suho nodded, mouth wet. “Yes.”

Suho’s hands were on him as they lowered onto Kai’s furs. Not tentative or wary, but touches full of hunger across Kai’s shoulders, his chest. There was no wariness in his eyes, or anger, examining Kai’s face like he was someone strange, somehow foreign. He felt Suho moan against his lips, sucked against the soft skin of his jaw, his throat.

“I burn with need of you,” Kai said, the words torn from him because he could not keep them deep.

Let Suho use that need, that knowledge, exploit it.

“You don’t have to…Oh.”

Kai lifted his mouth from Suho’s neck. “Yes, I do. If it makes you make sounds like that. Because my Suho knows what he wants and what he doesn’t want. He knows how to tell his master what he likes.”

They were tangled together, Kai pulling Suho half on top of him.

“And every so often he wants his master,” Kai murmured. “Because that is not something he can hide. Am I right?”

Suho leaned down into him, his hair gleaming red in the low light.

“Yes,” Suho murmured against his mouth. “I am slick already, ready for you.”

Kai gaped up at him, and Suho’s lips twisted, sheepish.

“When I knew you were back, I prepared myself. In case—“

“In case my want and impatience overrode my good sense,” Kai said. “Again.”

Suho moved his head into Kai’s hand like a contented cat.

“It was this I hoped for.”

Kai rolled Suho again, pinning him. “It is this I waited for,” Kai told him. “Call me Kai, as you have before. Not in front of others, except maybe Sehun. But in this tent you have full use of my name.”

And it was to Suho’s moans that he took him. Suho grasping at his hair and skin to keep him close, Suho kissing his lips, his face.

“Kai,” Suho pleaded, as Kai touched him.

He could not last long in the slick warmth, hips straining for more as Suho gave to him, kissed him, moaned for him.

“You are mine,” Kai moaned, his lips dragging across Suho’s skin. He pressed close until they were nose to nose with Suho looking at him, half-blind with need. “Suho, you are mine.”

“Yes,” Suho agreed.

“And I… am yours.”

Suho drew a noisy breath, and cried out, his eyes squeezing closed as he came over Kai’s fingers. He was gorgeous, desperate and full of life. His.

“Kai,” Suho chanted as he drew breath. “Kai.”

And Kai emptied himself in Suho’s body.

***

Suho began to squirm, and it lifted Kai from his stupor.

“No,” he complained, not certain exactly what he was demanding an end to.

“The light,” Suho said, his hand on Kai’s arm. “I should straighten up.”

Suho leaving him as he had the night before, going to his pallet and leaving him cold. He had such a vague memory of falling asleep against Suho the night he had stolen Suho’s bed. It had risen in his mind at times when he had woken in the night, cold.

“No,” Kai said again. “I’ll help you.”

He said the last almost amused as Suho gaped at him as Kai rolled to the edge of the bed.

Even if helping meant emptying his bladder as Suho checked the flaps of the tent and blew out the far light. Kai waited, patiently, watching the lines of Suho’s body and shadows playing over it. He gleamed as he approached Kai again, by the last light that still shone.

“Thank you for your help,” Suho said, a smile touching his face.

“For my favorite slave,” Kai said.

The only of his tent. That, too.

“Come back into my bed with me, if you would,” Kai asked.

It was with a nod almost embarrassed that Suho agreed. Perhaps he wondered if Kai still hungered for him. But that was not the case, as Kai extinguished the light and nudged Suho ahead of him beneath the covers.

He pressed his nose into the back of Suho’s hair and smelled sweat, and musk, and sex, and his body was warm against Suho’s back.

He stroked the skin beneath Suho’s ribs and felt his consciousness waver.

“Suho,” he sighed, and reached down to grasp Suho’s forearm. Perhaps he would divine that Kai desired only to sleep against him. For a little while. Just to feel that warmth a little longer.

***

A noise woke Suho, feeling unnaturally warm and heavy and knowing why without even thinking of it. He could hear Kai’s deep and even breaths behind his head, an arm loose over his ribs. Suho opened one eye experimentally, moving his head toward the sound. His mouth parted at the sight of Sehun who raised a finger to his lips, holding out his other hand and telling Suho wordlessly that he should stay.

A moment later, he gasped, as Kai said, “That was Sehun?”

Suho nodded. “Yes. He comes in if I do not go to him first.”

“I must sleep deeply, then, or you are prompt to wake.”

“Both,” Suho mused.

But not that morning. Lulled by the heat of Kai’s body, he thought, or the comfort of Kai’s bed. Kai pulled him back, closer, and the kisses to Suho’s throat had him sighing. Kai’s mouth was incredibly…incredible.

“You should see yourself like this,” Kai said, touching Suho’s face. “You flush so easily. You were sweaty again. Perhaps we should bathe in the pond together again tonight.”

“We’ll wear out the water,” Suho joked.

Kai just grinned as he stood, leaving Suho dazed for a moment. He should have stopped Kai, stood before him. But Kai was there to greet him as he rose, a kiss pressed against his mouth as Suho’s arm curved around Kai’s neck. He startled himself, almost drawing away because of a touch he’d had no permission to give.

But Kai stopped him, drawing him closer.

“Touch me as you wish,” Kai offered. “Only as you wish. It pleases me.”

“Yes,” Suho said. “Kai.”

Kai smiled and it had Suho looking away before whatever was inside of him could twist out of control.

Kai lifted his chin, waiting until Suho met his eyes. “Yes, I like that. Subservience doesn’t suit you. Sometimes I look at you and see a general who should be in command. Don’t laugh at me.”

Suho’s lips trembled. “I would never laugh at my master. But Kai is being exceptionally humorous this morning.”

When Kai huffed, pulling him close as though to kiss him, Suho pressed his hand against Kai’s collarbone.

“Sehun will be back soon if I do not go, and I need to fetch your breakfast. And mine.”

But Kai still succeeded in pressing a kiss to his mouth, before letting Suho go. It was awkward, a little, dressing and feeling Kai’s eyes on him.

“Come to find me after your morning chores,” Kai suggested.

“I will,” Suho told him. And he looked back, lowering his head only slightly as he smiled to see Kai standing there still naked and watching him. Suho ducked out of the tent, and felt lighter than he had in months. If only it didn’t change again. If Kai meant what he said.

Though he was so focused on Kai that he didn’t think about what he was to be facing when he saw Sehun. Of course Sehun had known all the times before, but that day? That day Suho’s face flushed hot at Sehun’s knowing smirk.

He cuffed the side of Sehun’s head, and readied the dishes so he could take Kai his breakfast.

“You look happy,” Sehun told him. “The only time I’ve seen you like this before was when Kai gave you that book.”

“It is a beautiful morning,” was all Suho was content to say. At least, until his embarrassment calmed. He felt near to bursting with everything that had happened, and Sehun would be the only one who understood. Still, he thought Sehun might caution him. The caution would be warranted. No matter how much favor Kai showed him, Suho was still his slave.

***

“You spoke?” Sehun asked, almost as soon as Suho settled beside him after breakfast. “And more, I see, but… You look better.”

Suho felt better as well. He’d spent the whole of the previous day after Kai had left wrestling between anger and fear, and telling himself he had no right to it. He’d felt used, discarded, when the night previous to that he had felt cherished. He did not think it was guilt, the way that Kai had touched him, given him permissions he could not have dreamed of. It had been Kai’s right, and they could not have denied that. It was Suho’s feelings regarding it that had been the issue, and those Kai had heard. Suho had almost seen him absorbing, understanding in some way even if perhaps he had not understood fully. He had listened - and asked. It had been more than Suho had hoped for, but not as much as he had deserved, and still Kai had shown him without words what he truly wanted.

“He heard me. When he saw something was wrong, he listened,” Suho said. Whether it would go back to the way it had been with moments of passion, he didn’t know. He had survived it then, and would find acceptance of it. Everything else would be lukewarm to the want Kai had shown him.

The care. Kai touching his face, and worried for him. That above all else he wanted to believe.

“It is good that he did. You did not see your face yesterday,” Sehun said, shaking his head. “He needed to know something was wrong.”

“I thought a lot about those tears,” Suho mused. “I was afraid that… I was afraid that he would treat me like a slave again. That sounds so odd to say. Perhaps like I perceived a slave to be used? It was a shock, because it had been so different than that. But now, I don’t know if it is usual for a slave to share his master’s bed. Though it has only happened once.”

“Kai feels very deeply. If he wants you in his bed, he will have you there. He wanted to know you were pleased by your encounters, and he cared for your wellbeing.”

“But?” Suho asked, hearing Sehun hesitate.

“You are right to say it was only once. He may not always desire it. I think he is still discovering what he wants from you. If he wished you to sleep beside him night by night, would you want it? Or do you prefer sleeping alone?”

“His bed is comfortable,” Suho ventured, making Sehun laugh. But his smile was quick. “No. I would… I would find it agreeable. We came to an understanding, so I would be glad sleeping alone as long as that understanding stays.”

“Then he has finally made you understand he wants you as more than a body.”

“He is not alone in that.”

“I am glad. He needed someone like you. Someone who could challenge him, make him more. I think you make him see slaves differently. I think you show him how to be a better man.”

“He was never a bad man. He just did not understand a slave cannot— He did not fully understand his power.”

“Yes,” Sehun said, looking pleased. “It was not something I could teach him, as someone raised beside him, because he did not ask those things of me. You deserved a master also who could realize it. A lover who could realize it.”

“He would not think of himself that way,” Suho said, his face flushing and words coming hard, nearly stuttering. “I could not.”

“Yes. I should not have— We will see how time may pass.”

That, they could agree on.

***

There was apprehension, but there was not fear when Suho waited for Kai to return that evening. Mere hours apart would not have changed things, but Kai had stroked his shoulder as he had left, and it had made Suho warm even as he warned himself of reading too much into it. Kai could have simply still been coddling him. But Kai did not enter the tent only to sit with his ledgers, he looked to Suho, his face brightening in greeting. And Suho hadn’t been able to be still, even before Kai’s hand had risen to bid him near. It was not a kiss but a clasp of bodies, a greeting as Suho breathed into Kai’s shoulder.

He opened his mouth to ask if there was anything that Kai needed, and instead said, “It is good to have you home.”

Kai stroked along his back, murmuring something unintelligible and Suho trembled inside. It was the dinner bell that parted them, moments later, and Suho slipped away in wordless nerves, returning with his food and Kai’s, and eating quickly. His stomach ached, but it was worth it to sit at Kai’s knee and watch him do sums.

Suho cleared his throat and when Kai looked up, Suho held his fingertip beside a number and kept it there as Kai blinked down at it, and blinked down again. And then Kai laughed, correcting the six to a five.

“That was very subtle,” Kai said.

“I thought so. You would not like it if I went back when you were sleeping to change your numbers.”

“I would worry. Have you seen others wrong but just never said?”

Suho shook his head. “I would have shown you somehow.”

Somehow, even if it had meant risking Kai’s anger. He had not feared then, had not feared even if he had spoken aloud, but it was Kai’s response that had amused him, and made him glad.

And Kai took him to his bed and kissed him, helped him with the oil until Suho’s body was slick, and eager, his mind ready and clear, and Kai tugged the cloth from him, baring him, hands sprawling over his skin. Kai’s lips were soft, sucking on Suho’s tongue as he squeezed Suho’s ass as though he thought of what he would do to him. He followed Kai, straddled his hips and kept kissing him, rocking his cock against Kai’s in such delicious friction. He felt more of a man like that, the way they touched, the way Kai let him touch instead of a vessel to be taken.

“Let me see you,” Kai said, and Suho rose, panting, his lips throbbing as Kai took him in from his knees to the hardness of his cock to his heaving chest. He reached, touching the dark water drop on Suho’s inner thigh. “You were going to explain this to me.”

It was a tale that needed to be told close, and not so exposed. Suho bent low over Kai’s chest, feeling Kai’s hands on his sides. He had not intended to, but nor could he keep it from Kai when he asked directly, and it comforted him to be near. Kai’s father, perhaps, would be angry, but he did not think that Kai would be.

“I was marked when they found the Sight in me.”

Kai accepted that, not throwing Suho onto the floor immediately, but still Suho fretted inside as Kai thought.

“You never told me.”

“Sehun—“ Suho stopped, horrified that he might be getting his friend in trouble. “Sehun told me that often if bad things occur after a vision, people with the Sight are blamed for calling it. So I held my tongue.”

“That’s true,” Kai agreed. “I am glad he cautioned you for your own safety. You are more than I imagined. Little temple worker, full of fire. Water is your element?”

“I See better in places of water, though I can See without it, or with as little as a bowl of it. It is not usually as strong though, unless the vision is very powerful.”

“I see.”

Suho let his breath release, when it still seemed that Kai was not angry.

“I also did not speak of it, because you said… You said that you were the only temple at which I would worship.”

“Surely I would not have said such an arrogant thing,” Kai teased, making Suho smile. “But the visions are part of you, unrelated to place or allegiance. Do you See often?”

Suho shook his head. “No. Sometimes I can control it. In these tents, at first I lost sight of myself except for small things. When I became more secure, it began to come back to me. You know now why I know to prepare for rain.”

“They are just visions, though. Or knowledge of weather.”

Suho nodded, leaning his hand into Kai’s hand. “Yes. I have no magic of my own but for the visions. Water is comforting to me. That you kissed me there, in the pond…”

“It was meant, then,” Kai said, and pulled at him.

They were not in water then, but he lowered his head and softened his lips for Kai’s kiss.

***

It was not every night, sleeping at Kai’s side. When Suho greeted Kai at his horse with a smile, Kai had tugged him inside for eager kisses. Kai was gentle cupping his head, helping Suho to suck his cock, praising him. Those nights, Suho slept alone, licking his lips clean and stroking himself on his pallet as Kai slept. It was the nights that Kai stripped him, covered him, held him as they both panted and shuddered with pleasure that Kai had brought them both to. Suho did not protest, and Kai did not keep him from rising to shutter the lights, though sometimes Kai sat up and waited, holding out a hand in silent command until Suho rested back against his side. He slept better then, warmer, the bed softer, the possessive hand or arm Kai had on him a comfort. Kai asked more questions, not to excess, but he still asked. It was not even for permission, not outright, though that was what it was in truth. Suho wondered what Kai would do if he refused him. Suho had not had to or wanted to.

Suho watched for Kai, for his cock to harden or his eyes to wander across Suho’s body. It made it so easy to move closer, to angle his body in offering until Kai met his eyes and Suho smiled at him.

Kai grasped the back of his head and pulled him up into his kiss, almost punishing in its eagerness. The squeeze of his hands, the roll of his body, the wet of his mouth. Kai made him want. Kai asked for his want. He let out a startled little moan as Kai pressed hard kisses across his cheekbone and jaw.

“All I want when you leave is to see you back, and bare, and against me,” Kai said, taking Suho’s ear between his teeth for a moment.

“I would not turn from you,” Suho breathed, grinning as Kai laughed.

And when Kai’s fingertip touched Suho’s lips as they both breathed, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Kai was admiring him, how well he’d been kissed, and Suho wanted something more - to take Kai’s finger in his mouth, to suck upon it as their eyes met. And then reap the pleasure as Kai’s mouth parted.

Suho lathed Kai’s finger, slipping his mouth along it. He took in two, three, sucking on them as though they were Kai’s cock, as though they would give him the come he desired.

“Suho,” Kai said, his voice rough.

It was tease enough, it seemed, so Suho let those slick fingers go, took to his knees and pleased his master very well.

And it was only after he had licked Kai’s cock clean that Kai pulled him back, pulled him until Suho rested against Kai’s body on the bed and Kai could get his hands into Suho’s pants. He was hard, so hard from the pleasure he’d given Kai that he almost bleated as Kai touched him.

“Kai!”

It had been what he had always wanted, and yet still he tensed as Kai gripped him, where he was still hard.

“You fill me so full of need,” Kai said, and at Suho’s half sigh, he growled. “Yes. Your body is the same.”

His eyes were unseeing as Kai stroked him quickly, skin against skin, what little wet there was. But he came, frightfully quick and braced against Kai’s body.

If he’d been without his clothes, he could have felt Kai’s skin against his, but Kai still cupped his cock and kept him close.

“Do you enjoy that?” Kai wondered.

“I wished,” he said, and was cut off as Kai kissed his neck. But then the words would not leave him.

“Wished for what? For this? Me to touch you after?”

“It felt like too much to hope for,” Suho said. And even then, he hoped that Kai did not take him as being too forward. His pleasure in their encounters was a gift, not a given.

“Then you do not know how— To find you wanting after pleasing me, to know you swallow my seed and enjoy my body? Your body rises when you are beneath me, and I feel more of a man.” Kai spoke against Suho’s ear, and breathed. “To feel your need for me in my hand, between my lips. Know I need it.”

It sent shivers against his spine as Kai drew him closer, turned him until they faced each other.. He lifted Kai’s hand, the one that had touched him, and kissed the back of it. It turned and he kissed Kai’s palm, tasting salt and skin. And Kai stroked his hair as they drowsed together, Kai’s arm behind his back holding him close. No heat nor sweat would have driven him from that embrace.

***

Sehun knew of Suho’s plan, but that was only because it could not have been accomplished without him. It was not truly a vision that called Suho into action, but a dream, a dream that Kai stood in the shadows of the temple, watching Suho as he blessed the water. It was not the temple Kai was there for, not the blessing of it, but for Suho. He’d stood so quiet in the dream as Suho went to him, tugging at Suho’s robes as though to say he did not know why he was dressed so. The Suho of Kai’s tent did not dress in slick fabric, gauzy and cool. He woke, just before Kai leaned to kiss him.

And dressed in those slick robes which had been put in a box to one day be used as rags, Suho knelt and offered his master his wine, bowed low and close the floor as though Kai were a patron of the temple. It lowered him, and he did not realize how much until then. Kai did not demand he kneel or bow so close to the ground or never to raise his eyes.

“What is this?” Kai asked. But from Suho’s hands, he took the cup. “Suho? Those clothes are from the temple.”

He rose from the floor just enough so that he could speak clearly. “They had not yet been used as rags. I wanted to serve you in them, just for one night.”

“But you do not serve me as you served some patron,” Kai said, and there was irritation starting in his voice. Suho had feared that.

“Please. Master, just for one night. Let me.”

That he invoked Kai’s position over him, he could tell that he had gotten Kai’s attention.

“For now,” Kai said with some doubt. “You bring me wine, as you would have a patron?”

“Yes, m— Yes, Kai,” Suho said, watching Kai’s knee jerk in front of his face. It made him smile, glad his face was still hidden. “I would bow like this for hours, sometimes. As long as they wanted, unless I went to fetch more food or wine.”

“Did you eat or drink?”

“No,” Suho said. “The wine was for the patrons alone. If we had ever drank any, we would have been severely punished.”

“You have never tasted wine? Surely Sehun has offered you some.”

“Offered, yes, but I refused. He told me that we were allowed a measure.”

“Peculiar. Sit up. I grow weary of talking to your hair,” Kai told him, poking at his head. And when Suho took in Kai’s face, it was amused. “I doubt that’s how your patrons made you sit up.”

“That is true.”

Kai crooked his finger until Suho came closer. Suho inhaled as Kai’s finger dipped into the goblet. And as Kai smiled, Suho’s lips parted. And he tasted. His eyes were closed of a purpose, so that he could savor the wine, the texture of Kai’s finger, and the moan that Suho could only hope for. It was breathy and low, but it was there.

“Well?” Kai asked, when he finally pulled his finger away.

“It is different to the juice I am used to,” Suho said. “But it is good.”

“Yes,” Kai said, and then held out the goblet. “Have more.”

He would. But he wanted closer. It had nothing to do with how he had served the patrons at the temple any more. Kai’s eyes widened steadying Suho at his waist as he placed his knees at each side of Kai’s hips. He both saw and heard Kai swallow, felt power tickle in the back of his throat, and instead of taking the goblet himself he placed his hand around Kai’s.

“Please,” Suho said, and guided the cup to his lips. It was only the smallest of sips, letting the musty-smelling fluid roll across his tongue. He hummed as he swallowed, trying to fully appreciate the taste. Slightly bitter and acidic.

He did not remove his hand from around Kai’s and the goblet, even as Kai drank, and then Suho again. And then he tasted it on Kai’s kiss, Kai’s free hand curling around Suho’s neck and holding him so that he could suck the flavor from Suho’s lips. It was finer than any goblet, Kai’s mouth,and he wondered at the sentiment in that. He needed no goblet, no wine, to want.

“Would you like more?” Suho asked, meeting Kai’s eyes and stroking Kai’s fingers around the cup.

“Yes,” Kai said, his eyes on Suho’s mouth. “But I would drink it from another vessel.”

Suho at last understood his meaning, looking from Kai to the goblet that was being offered. In his mouth he took a little wine, getting close enough to kiss. And from his mouth, Kai drank.

“Yes,” Kai murmured, and tipped more wine into Suho’s mouth, more until it ran the corners of his lips, down his chin to his throat. And the goblet was abandoned to the table, Kai licking clean his skin as Suho panted. His head spun, and not from the wine. Suho caused the rumble against his chin, when he gripped Kai’s shoulders and let his thighs slip wide so that he could rock his hips into Kai’s body.

He caused it. He’d earned it.

Kai had always been in control. He told Suho to kneel, to bend over, to touch himself. Not then. He watched Kai’s eyes nearly crossed, mouth parted. When he did focus, it was on Suho’s face, his mouth, his eyes. Almost as if taking him in, as though being able to see Suho then added to his pleasure.

“Right here,” Suho murmured, and Kai nodded, sighing against Suho’s mouth. “Will you take these from me?”

His robes. It had been Sehun who had carried them away the first time, dressing Suho in the more serviceable clothes he normally wore. He wanted Kai to push them off his shoulders, to bare him for Kai’s eyes alone. Unlike any temple patron, it was because he wanted it.

Suho watched Kai’s face as the cloth parted, watched until he saw that Kai knew that there was no other cloth beneath it.

“Let me bring you pleasure,” Suho said, lifting himself up just enough so that he could look down into Kai’s face.

“In return for what?”

Suho merely smiled, and kissed him. Kissed him, rocked into him, met his moans as he felt Kai grow harder, until the laces were undone and he could feel Kai skin to skin.

But he had another secret, as he lifted himself.

Kai gasped against his lips, and Suho murmured, “I’m ready for you.”

Ready for Kai’s hands to steady him as his body accepted Kai in. The slow rock, lift and fall, the feel of Kai’s hips trying to rise. He was nearly breathless when he could fall no further.

“Suho.”

Yes. Say his name. So that every movement of his body, in Kai’s mind was pleasure being given by Suho alone. Their hips moved together, the rise of Kai’s and the fall of his, undulating in perfect pleasure. He was free of the robes, free to enjoy all of Kai, unencumbered by his past, by his fear. Kai was hard and so urgent, moaning for him, helping him to ride, helping him to feel.

He gathered the utmost of his strength, cupping Kai’s face and trying to focus on his eyes.

“Do you know what makes this different than the temple?” There were so many reasons, but there was one most different from the others - that Kai made Suho want, made him secure. He wanted it, as he had never wanted in the temple, enough to tempt Kai as he had.

Kai’s eyes widened and he moaned. “Suho.”

Cradled in Kai’s arms, filled by him, Suho came between them, his head slipping back in his pleasure as he moaned Kai’s name.

***

Suho did not want Kai to feel threatened by the fabric - it held no meaning any more. But he pressed himself tight to Kai’s side, and watched with Kai as the temple cloth burned. There would be no rags, no remembrance of it, no questions in Kai’s mind as he led Suho to his bed. Suho’s place was not at the temple any longer.

***


	5. Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.

***

Sehun had not asked Kai what had happened the morning that Suho cried. Kai suspected that Sehun knew either from Suho’s demeanor or his words. He wasn’t unaware that they talked together, did not forbid it since some of his valuable information about Suho had come specifically because Sehun knew Suho well. They could speak as Suho had not been able to speak to Kai before, though he thought that had changed at least some to the better. Sehun had been right to speak up, giving Kai a chance to make things right as much as he had been able. He hadn’t been able to undo the hurt, but Suho had accepted him. He had not had to - if Suho had made himself a stone, he could have existed in Kai’s tent until neither of them could stand the distance. He wasn’t sure what he would have done. The thought of selling Suho left an achy feeling in his chest.

Sehun seemed to know when Kai was there to ask about Suho, and Kai wasn’t sure how. Something in his face or posture, perhaps.

“What can I tell you?” Sehun asked, barely looking up from the stick he was shaving. Or at least, he didn’t until Kai sat and then his attention was focused. Maybe he wondered if Kai had done something wrong. It wasn’t that at all. He’d come with questions, and realized he had a confession to make first.

“I burned those temple robes. I burned them. I don’t want the temple’s taint on him. I don’t want him to think of me like those men.”

Sehun did not even have the manners to disguise his snort. “If you don’t want to be like them, then you won’t be. But burning the robes? Because you believe he belongs in your tents now, not in the temple?”

“But does he believe it?” Kai groaned, letting his head fall back for a moment. “I have to think so, because he asked me to take the robes from him, and he didn’t protest when they were burned.”

“The good memories he has of that place won’t disappear with the burning of cloth. If you did not treat him like a patron would while wearing them, perhaps you alleviated some of his bad memories of them, too.”

“Perhaps. Has he told you what the patrons of the temple were like?”

“Enough to know they didn’t know how to please a man even if it would’ve made them richer,” Sehun said, speaking with as much disdain as he could muster.

Kai huffed out a laugh. “That is true. He doesn’t speak much on it. Some of them wanted his pain. I just want to know that he is at least content to be here.”

It had Sehun blinking at him, frowning slightly. Kai was glad he didn’t answer right away and took time to think, but the delay also gave Kai reason to worry.

“Should he not be? You’re treating him well.”

Kai’s exhale was one of frustration. “I think so. He’s not the quiet shadow he was once. I used to wonder if he accepted what I wanted because he wanted to, or because he was afraid of displeasing me.”

Sehun’s head tilted. “Used to? And you don’t think he would tell you the truth if you asked him yourself?”

Sehun didn’t even flinch when Kai hissed at him. “I suspect he’d give me a very diplomatic answer. I know he will speak up for himself. I just thought you…might know more.”

Or perhaps know more in that Kai did not know how to ask, felt clumsy thinking of doing it, to induce Suho to answer him without fear of retribution.

“You sleep near him,” Sehun pointed out, and it made Kai scowl. Fine, then, if Sehun would not speak, he had more questions he had in his mind.

“Suho said something last night that I haven’t been able to put from my mind. He asked if I knew what the difference was between the patrons at the temple did to him, and what we did together.”

Sehun stared at him, no expression changing except for the lifting of his eyebrows. “And?”

“He didn’t answer. I don’t know what he meant.”

“The patrons hurt him at the temple,” Sehun said slowly, “but you don’t know what he meant?”

Kai scowled. “I know I don’t hurt him like that. I know that, but what he did there, he did for the temple and the other men he was trying to make sure were fed. Here, I own him. He’s seen how my father can punish slaves. I’ve struck him myself, and I’ve caused him distress. Perhaps he meant that there was no difference. He was a servant of the temple, and now he is a slave. And neither time he could refuse, even if he knows he can speak up.”

“When you struck him, it was not because you enjoyed it or for anger, but to teach a lesson,” Sehun said, taking an instructing tone that Kai had not heard often. “And if you fear your slave accepts you or encourages you from fear, the only thing you can do is ask him, or take that fear from him. Then you’ll know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Swear an oath. He will not kneel or bow to your whim or provide sexual favor unless it is his true wish. In return, you swear you will not strike at him, punish him in any way, increase his work, or put him from your tents.”

“What slave would gain such concessions? Is his cock made of gold?” Kai asked, his laugh incredulous even as he considered it.

Sehun smirked, an expression Kai wished he could order right off of him. “Or you could simply ask him, like a grown man. I know you can speak to him. But I also know that he could ask me to intercede on his behalf with you, yet he has not complained. Were he so displeased, I know he would ask. You haven’t broken him.”

“Then he is happy,” Kai prodded.

Sehun picked up the knife and began to strip the bark again from the stick he held. All he had were two frustrating words: “Ask him.”

***

Suho on his knees made him want, bowed over smooth skin with scattered markings. He pressed Suho up against the trunk, both of them knelt on the floor and waiting. Kai could not get Sehun’s words from him, could not help but wonder what it meant what Suho thought of him. He had embraces, kisses, moans he had ordered from Suho’s throat, pleasure squeezed between his fingers. He had a man who slept still and warm beside him some nights, sighing at the brush of Kai’s hand against his skin.

Suho moaned at the press of Kai’s cock and he wondered if it was true, if Suho liked it, if he moaned because he knew Kai desired the sound of it. And Suho stiffened as Kai pressed against his back and whispered into his ear.

“Be silent this night, no sounds at all.”

He got Suho’s nod, the sound of harsh breaths, and he began to fuck, reveling in the feel of Suho tight around him. The silence was unnatural, broken by the sounds of Suho’s hands tightening on the trunk he braced on, the slick sounds of body against body. He held back his own moans, listening to Suho breathe as he paused. He wanted more than that, dissatisfied with it even as Suho tightened around him. Suho’s head turned easily at the press of Kai’s fingers, meeting Kai’s lips, trying to meet the messy kisses as Kai kept fucking him. First, it was a whimper from Suho’s throat, and a moan from Kai’s as Suho touched his hair.

It was that sound that changed things.

“Have I done something wrong?” Suho asked, panting, his eyes open but not meeting Kai’s.

“What? Why would you ask that?” Kai asked, and stilled entirely.

“Asking for my silence. As though you wish to pretend—“

“Pretend what?”

“I am someone else? Or if you do not want to know I enjoy—“

Suho moaned, an instinctual sound, as Kai pulled him up so that he leaned back against Kai’s chest. Fuck. He had not thought of what Suho would take from his request.

“You do not know the pleasure I have found listening to you,” Kai said, curling his hand around Suho’s half-hard cock. “I know very well it is you around me. I want to hear you, Suho.”

“Kai.”

He moaned for Suho, a template, an invitation, and Suho moaned for him, rocking into Kai’s stroking hand and back onto Kai’s cock. Suho went hard so quickly, maybe because he was not holding back, maybe from Kai’s touch, but Kai stroked and sucked along Suho’s shoulder until Suho shuddered and came. It was permission himself to bury himself, fill Suho as he’d wanted to from the start.

He kissed the tender skin Suho’s neck and wondered how it was that they had gotten there, how he had gotten so tangled inside that he made Suho think he was displeased with him. Suho rose, ready to make for the cloth to clean them with, or Kai knew not what. And Kai stopped him, standing and pulling Suho close. It was time to do away with his own demons.

“How does this between us differ than at the temple? You asked and did not answer me.”

Suho turned to him, his face shadowed in the light.

“You are my master. You own me as the temple did, and yet… There I had no choice. But here, I want.”

“Here you have no choice as well, even if you want,” Kai said, stroking down Suho’s arm. There was bitterness there, something Kai didn’t understand even as he said it.

“Would you force me to my knees if I begged you not to? Would you force me to silence instead of hearing my pain?” Suho asked. And when Kai did not answer, Suho touched Kai’s cheek - and after a moment, cupped it. “You would not use your power like that.”

***

Suho knew all too well that Kai would not abuse his power, the way that Kai’s eyes hardened as though the thought of it was perverse. Yet once, perhaps he would have thought of a slave’s body as property. The man standing before him, Kai saw him as Suho and not a receptacle for his needs. He had listened when Suho had been hurting because of his actions. He listened then, had listened when Suho had worried.

“I don’t want to hear your pleasure if you did not want to give it,” Kai said, holding Suho’s wrist so that his hand would not lower from against his face. “I’ve demanded it from you before. I did not want to erase your pleasure, or your pain. I feared… that I was only an echo of the temple to you.”

The inhale was nearly a gasp, when Suho realized they had both been so misunderstood.

“No. Oh, no. When you told me I would worship at your body, I did not expect you to worship at mine, too.” And Suho was abashed for even having suggested it. “I’m— I didn’t mean to—“

Kai stopped him, gripping his chin and lifting it. “You spoke truth.”

“Maybe once I moaned because I thought you wished it, but I learned that if I moaned for myself, it was not a lie. I could show you what pleased me with a sound. I would be Suho of Kai’s tent, with my own voice, my own master. I did not mean to make you worry.”

If he gave Kai what was true, what he received back had more likelihood to be also. He didn’t want Kai to fear the temple or Suho’s connection to it. He wanted Kai to know that he was settled, secure, finally, and when he slipped his arms over Kai’s shoulders, Kai let him, held him.

“I would not worry, when you look at me without shying away,” Kai said. “Even when I make you think you’ve displeased me, or if I have hurt you.”

“You have never had to listen or change, or apologize, or make promises.” Suho tightened his arms around Kai’s neck, pressing his cheek there against the warm skin. “Thank you for hearing me.”

“Tell me if there is anything you… don’t want,” Kai said, his voice halting. “If you’re unhappy.”

There were times when he thought of the different types of masters he could have had, the sorrow, the pain, the exhaustion, that it left him breathless. It did not make Kai perfect, how Kai had dealt with him without reproach, but it did not stunt the fact that he was grateful. He felt protected there in Kai’s arms, welcomed. The scent of Kai was more home to him than the tent itself. What Suho longed for was not something that was right between master and slave, the giddy joy Sehun couldn’t contain sometimes when he spoke of his merchant. Sometimes Suho wondered if his own feelings came about because he had no choice.

It comforted him to know it was not true, and he reveled in the feeling of Kai’s lips against his, soft, kissing him with utmost care. Kai kissed his cheek, his neck, and breathed him in.

“Sometimes I wonder…” Kai murmured. “Would you stay by my side, even if you were not a slave.”

A slither of cold touched his spine. Suho knew words of power, how they sounded. It was not Sight but knowledge. It was as though his soul had been touched. It was not prophecy. But words of power had the chance to change futures, but not always in the way the speaker or even the listener anticipated. Kai did not even know what he’d said, as he leaned against Suho.

It lingered in the back of his mind as they washed, as Kai pulled him close beneath the blanket and breathed against his hair. If he was not a slave, he did not know what else he would be.

***

Suho found a coin in his sandal. It was not the strangest place he had found one, but he did not imagine Kai had much occasion to bother with Suho’s sandals or boots, because when Suho was not wearing them they were tucked out of Kai’s sight. When he looked up, Kai was smirking down at him.

“I see you have a coin,” Kai said.

And Suho opened his mouth to agree, to offer it back to Kai since Kai was standing next to him. He wanted to jolt, to hide it, as though Kai would think he had tried to take it but realized it would have looked as though he were guilty of something he wasn’t.

“What have you been buying with them?” Kai asked, crouching down beside him. “Fruit? Something pretty?”

Suho nearly sputtered. “With your coins? I would not! I’ve bought nothing that you haven’t directed me to.”

“What do you mean? Have you been saving the coins I left for you?” Kai asked, and was so perplexed when Suho offered the coin back to him on his palm. Kai actually pushed his hand back, curling his fingers over the coin. “It’s yours.”

“Left for me,” Suho said, his brain halting. “You mean… The coin in the basin? In my book? The trunk? You left those for me?”

“How would a coin have gotten into your book otherwise?” Kai asked.

Suho wasn’t used to being looked at as though he was very slow and without understanding.

“Then what have you been doing with the coins if not spending them?” Kai asked.

“Putting them aside for you!” Suho said, and that was something he could do, something he understood. He went straight to Kai’s shelf where Kai kept his combs, his clothes, his creams. From it he pulled a clay jar that Kai reached past every single day. In it was the unmistakeable sound of coins jangling together, and Kai was laughing, incredulous as he took the jar and looked down in it.

“I kept waiting for you to say something,” Kai teased. “I thought you were using them and embarrassed.”

“I would have thought I was stealing!” Suho exclaimed.

“That was why I put them in your belongings, things you used. I was too subtle still, I suppose.”

Suho almost deflated, swallowing back a laugh. “Yes. I worried more for you, if you were losing money like that. But you mean to say… These are all mine?”

“Yes,” Kai said. “And especially so now that I realize how true you were to me.”

Suho didn’t know what to do with the admiration on Kai’s face. He had done it because it was the right thing, even more so than knowing there would be a beating or worse if he had truly tried to steal. A loss of trust, and certainly a loss of status. None of those things could be retrieved with so small a coin.

“It’s too much,” Suho said, not even knowing how many coins there were exactly even with the one he still held.

“Why?”

“Why?” Suho echoed. “I—“

He didn’t know why. The half dozen or so coins wouldn’t buy much. They wouldn’t buy much of anything significant, more tokens. A few pieces of fruit, a worn book, a length of cloth.

“You have given me everything I need,” Suho settled on. And he knew if he had needed something more, he could have asked.

“Even if you can trade in your book for others, life is more than just being provided for. You don’t get to choose your meals, or anything else. I thought it would be nice for you to be able to decide something,” Kai said, pressing that simple jar back into Suho’s hands. “Even if it is to save them for something.”

Suho put the jar with the coins down in favor of a different kind of reward. He touched Kai’s chest, fingers half on skin and half on cloth, looking between Kai’s eyes and his mouth until Kai understood and kissed him. It was a lingering kiss, Suho pressing into it as Kai stroked along his back.

“You are more thoughtful than you think,” Suho said. “Thank you.”

“I’ll accept your thanks,” Kai said, almost impossibly mild. “Perhaps I should tell Sehun I tucked a few coins into his bed. He may still be sleeping on them.”

“Kai,” Suho laughed, almost squirming from the engulfing warmth inside. “Kai.”

He hummed as Kai kissed him, pulled into the solidness of his body, Kai’s arms sliding around him.

“I did not mean to seduce you with coin,” Kai muttered.

Suho inhaled as Kai’s hand slipped into the back of his pants. He shifted his hips forward, showing Kai without words that his cock rose for Kai. Kai had left him coin for the fun of it, perhaps and left Sehun some, also. It was not the coin, the having of them, that affected him so. It was the giving.

“You only need to breathe,” Suho admitted, and let Kai draw him closer.

***

The coins were a weight in his trunk, like he carried them around with them instead of having them out of sight. Sehun had laughed baldly when Suho had told him of it, telling him that Kai had made him shake out his blankets to find the coins there and scowling when Sehun had been bewildered.

“He asked me if I’d been growing coins out of my skin,” Sehun chuckled. “I’d have been scared if I’d found them, thinking someone was setting me up to be accused of stealing.”

“That’s close to what I thought, too! I thought I might be accused of it because Kai was just being exceptionally forgetful.”

They shared a little laugh, a traded look, at Kai’s expense. But there was fondness in that, too. He didn’t ask where Sehun kept his coins, or what he meant to spend them on when he had no idea what he wanted either. Some days he went out with a coin tied in the corner of a handkerchief, staring at things. Household items, pretty daggers, bolts of cloth, books, stacks of vegetables and hanging carcasses. He went out several times like that, imagining, wondering. He thought he owed himself even a small thing, to use it as a decision he could make for himself. He haggled down the end of a bolt of cloth, and used half his coin. The other half, he splurged on thick ripe fruit, not too sweet, with flesh the color of mangoes. It was Kai’s favorite, a fruit he’d come to appreciate because of it. It made him smile, carrying them home in the cloth he’d bought and cutting them small, swirling it in honey and spice and letting them sit, waiting for after Kai ate, almost dancing as he sat and ate and wondered. Kai was obviously preoccupied because he didn’t call Suho near and ask about his day, but that didn’t keep him from calling for him after.

When Kai stood, it had Suho reaching for the bowl of prepared fruit and walking near to where Kai stood.

“What’s this?” Kai asked, even though he could plainly see with his two eyes.

“I bought it in the market today,” Suho said.

Kai seemed bemused, picking up a piece of fruit and sucking it into his mouth with a hum.

“So, you used a coin I gave you to use for yourself…to buy fruit for me,” Kai clarified.

It sounded less impressive when put like that.

“For us,” Suho corrected. “And it was only half a coin. The other half I used to buy new cloth to shield myself from the sun. They had only a small bit left, and I liked the color, so.”

He realized he was trying to justify the cloth purchase when Kai began to smile.

“Then you did buy something only for yourself. That’s good. Since you bought this for us, share it with me,” Kai said.

Suho sat with him on the edge of the bed, lifting a piece of the sticky fruit for himself as he watched Kai savor.

“You make this better even than Sehun does,” Kai said, and Suho cursed himself when his face grew hot.

“I pay attention to how quickly you eat it based on how it tastes,” Suho murmured. And his eyes widened when Kai lifted a piece of the fruit to Suho’s mouth.

“You pay attention to many things, it sounds like,” Kai said, watching as Suho took the fruit from his fingers. Suho took another piece himself, offering it, his breath hitching as Kai took one of Suho’s fingertips between his lips as well. That mouth curving as he fed Suho more, and let his fingers linger so that Suho could suck them clean.

“Suho.”

There was a tone of voice that Suho had found unmistakeable, one that had a measure of want in it. It had been shifting through him as well, lifting his eyes to meet Kai’s, the steady demand of them.

Kai put down the bowl, and took Suho’s hand, turning it over, before clasping it in his own.

“You have Seen for Sehun. You can read desires. Touch me. Tell me what you See.”

There were times he could, Suho wanted to protest, and times he couldn’t. The thought had to be free and open, at the very front of consciousness. He could not read deeper than that and had no desire to. He wondered, with Kai so reserved, if he would be able to see anything but the glimmer of want.

But he had no sooner opened his mind and reached for Kai’s, when he pulled his hand back, gasping. His cock twitched at the image he had seen, Kai on his back, urging Suho to fuck him.

“Did you see? Are you surprised?”

“I do not know if I saw what you meant,” Suho said, the words awkward from his lips.

“Your cock in me?” Kai asked, and Suho nodded, unable to keep the amazement off his face. “Don’t look so startled. Why should I not be curious how you do? I’ve tried it in the past, and liked it, but there are not so many men I would trust not to hold it over me.”

“But— oh.” Kai trusted him. As his slave, as a man, as a bed partner, he didn’t know which, but Kai was telling him the truth. “I would tell no one, if that’s what you wish.”

“Then you are willing?”

“I have never,” Suho said. “But I would..try.”

“We’ll try until we accomplish what we want,” Kai agreed, and tugged at Suho’s tunic as he pressed his mouth against Suho’s.

He loved that, almost more than anything else, those traded kisses and tug of cloth, anticipation, breathless as Kai’s skin was bared to him, to his wandering hands. His hands that were free to touch, to stroke, his lips free to speak Kai’s name. There in Kai’s tent, he was a man with his eager lover, a word he had chastised Sehun from using once, sighing as Kai kissed along his neck and bared all of Suho to the air and to him.

Kai rested back on the bed, not pulling Suho with him but widening out one knee like he couldn’t conscience both. His cock was hardening, thickening, and Suho knew what it was to suck at it, feel it hard inside him. But not that night. The positions were reversed. It would not be Kai’s mouth urging his pleasure, but his—

Suho nearly got onto the bed without fetching the oil, so distracted by Kai’s body.

“I can do it, or—“

“I will,” Suho said, kneeling between Kai’s legs. It was the stretch of Kai’s body before him. He knew what it was to make his body slick, to stretch it even a little to make the passage not so startling. And he was not as thick as Kai. He wondered if it would be enough for Kai, but Kai had asked, knowing. Kai’s cock twitched at the first touch of Suho’s fingers, and Suho let his thumb take a smooth path along Kai’s cock as he pressed two fingertips into Kai. It was not that two were so difficult, it was remembering how to let them in. His fingers squirmed and stroked, and he watched Kai’s eyes close, his mouth parting, swallowing, letting out the softer of moans. Not of pain, though, Suho thought he would have known that. He stroked into Kai’s body and wondered how he would survive it, as good as he felt around Suho’s fingers.

“I should let you do this when you have your mouth on me,” Kai moaned, and it made Suho grin.

“I would if you wanted.” To bring Kai pleasure, absolutely. “Do you… Is this enough?”

It was more than he usually did for himself, the subtle stretch and angling, reaching and feeling for what Kai rubbed against inside of him that felt so good.

“Yes. Fuck me,” Kai said, and Suho nearly whimpered, getting his own cock slick and shuffling closer on the bed. He’d nearly pressed his cock to Kai’s body when Kai spoke again. “Do anything you want to me. I won’t tell you no.”

It made Suho freeze, staring at Kai’s face Kai looked back so steadily that it was breathtaking. Maybe he meant it, but he could have had no idea what it said to Suho.

“Kai, I… I want you to tell me no, if that’s what you feel. Otherwise, I will always wonder if I am doing something you don’t want. I know you wish to show your trust in me. But that is trust, too.” And Suho swallowed hard, reaching for and squeezing Kai’s hand. “Knowing I will stop if you wish me to.”

He nearly whimpered when Kai sat up. “Suho.”

“Full power over you is not what I desire. To be…the same with you. Equal to you here, even if you may order me outside of this bed.”

Kai cupped his face, eyes searching Suho’s. “You continually amaze me,” Kai said.

And before Suho could respond or even process that statement, Kai was kissing him, telling him of his want with his lips and the stroke of his hand on Suho’s hair, his neck. He kissed Suho again, and again, pulling Suho over his body until he was stretched out over Kai, poised over him.

“I will tell you if there is something I don’t want,” Kai promised. “Share your pleasure with me.”

Suho nodded, speechless, and he moaned against Kai’s lips as he stroked them together, until all he knew was want, the need to press slick against Kai and try—

Try together.

And oh, it was different than Kai’s mouth, or his hand, or Suho’s own. They were at odds for a breathless set of heartbeats before Kai’s body gave and took him. Tighter, warm, adjusting so gingerly to push back in as Kai moaned under him. It felt too good. Too much, and at the same time different, not enough.

“How do you—“ Suho gasped, moaning as he slid into Kai again.

“How do I what?” Kai asked, and Suho was gratified, at least, that when he looked up Kai’s eyes were nearly as glazed as his felt.

“How do you last?”

Kai laughed at him, gasping little chuckles that did nothing to help his problem.

“You last as long as your body will,” Kai said, gripping Suho’s hip with one hand. “And I will enjoy every moment of it.”

If Kai thought to assure him, he’d both succeeded and failed in one breath. It was like anything, he assumed, that if he slowed, he could catch his runaway body, but that only worked so well. He had Kai’s moans, and Kai’s body, and the tightness of him. He added more oil, hoping less friction would help but it only encouraged him to go faster. All he wanted was for Kai to enjoy it, to find pleasure from it. And he whimpered when he saw Kai grab his own cock, stroking it as he watched Suho fuck him.

“Kai,” he moaned.

But Kai did not dissuade him, urging him, “Faster.”

It felt like his body was not his own, working so quickly he did not know how, his body almost at odds, having to realign and keep moving as he moaned and watched Kai’s face begin to tighten. It seemed impossible that he was above Kai, watching Kai, watching Kai crumble under the desperation.

“Kai. Kai, oh.”

Kai came from the stroking of his own hand, and from whatever pleasure he took from Suho in him, and Suho shuddered, his hips bumping hard, five, six times, until he whimpered at the pleasure that jolted through him. He could smell Kai’s pleasure, and he hung his head, breathing so desperately. He was still shaking with it when he pulled back, moving so that he could lick the come from Kai’s belly, gently sucking his cock clean as Kai grasped at his shoulder.

“You lasted enough,” Kai said, his lips curling, voice rough.

“Does it get easier?”

“Not always. Sometimes I’m barely in you before I want to come.”

He’d never known. He’d heard Kai hissing in his ear, surely, but he’d thought it was because of effort and not because he was so close to losing control.

“I’m glad I’m not alone, then.”

“We’ll see how it goes some other time. Here,” Kai said, and pulled Suho against his side before he could stand.

Yes, he would rest a little bit before getting up. He would stop shaking, at the very least. He didn’t even know why, fingers tangling with Kai’s as they rested together, sticky, too warm. But another part of Kai that he had shared with him.

“Did you like it?” Kai asked, after Suho had gotten up to tie down the flaps of the tent and to settle the tent for the night. Suho leaned his head back against Kai’s shoulder, and thought of so many things he could have said. Some were flippant, others serious.

But he settled on, “Yes,” and felt Kai smile against his cheek.

***

Suho carried the dishes toward the chest, cleaned and dried to be stored. It was not interesting work, but it was better than sitting and staring at the shadows on the side of the tent. Considering some of the labor performed, truly backbreaking work that gave the slaves callouses and life-altering injuries, he had the lightest of the labor. Perhaps they went to their beds uninterrupted, but that was not the horror he’d thought at first.

That was saying it in its most simplistic form. Ever since— Ever since Kai had pulled him over him, things had been different. There was so much more time spent with his arms around Kai’s body than spent naked. It seemed Kai liked to find him in his bed, and he slept there those nights when Kai was through and would not let him go or called him back. He’d become accustomed to Kai’s warmth against him even as the air around the tent chilled. It made his pallet feel cool, even with extra furs.

There was someone else in Kai, someone he’d seen only after raising his head and stopped thinking of himself as a slave. A kindness, a gentleness. Almost a shyness as he looked to Suho for approval. There was no improper sense of self-worth in Kai. He stood tall because he had been raised that way. But who he was beyond his station, that was what Suho had not seen. The fondness he felt when he saw Kai sleeping, dark eyelashes against his skin and his mouth parted. A pretty mouth, he had felt it often on all parts of himself.

Just to sit next to Kai and be near him…

He imagined Kai beside him, talking to him of the horses, of his sums, of the weather, or what he hoped to eat. Simple things that connected them, when he smiled to hear Kai’s voice, or to see Kai leaning over to kiss Suho’s bared shoulder. He smiled, and picked up Kai’s half-full water cup from the table to take it to the bucket he was washing in.

He took only a step, before his world tilted.

The cup dropped from numb fingertips, falling and smashing on the hard ground, the water a silver puddle just moments before Suho’s knees joined it there. But the pain wasn’t something he felt, his vision doubling, blurring. _He Saw the colorful tents of the marketplace, Saw Kai smiling to his right at his father. They walked between weapons and fruit, stepping into the central square._

_He heard the whistle, nearly saw the air rend. And he heard as Kai’s flesh parted, the thump and echo as a second arrow hit, burying in his ribs._

_Kai had only the time to draw in a breath. And he was dead. Suho watched the light fade from his eyes as Kai sank to the ground as shouts rose around him._

Suho came back to himself with a cry of alarm. Kai. He had to find Kai.

“Kai? Have you seen Kai?” he shouted as he ran, not caring of the strange looks or no answers. He knew where he would find Kai, but he wanted the vision to be false. If it was true, Kai was in terrible danger. Those visions could be changed, but only if he could make it in time. He passed the cloth gate of the market, and shoved his way through the crowd.

“Move, Kai is in danger. Kai! Kai!” If he could just get Kai to slow down. Keep him from moving into the open.

Halfway down the corridor of tents, he spotted the back of Kai’s head, moving past the weapon tent.

“Kai! Move,” Suho spat, shoving through a couple talking together. “Kai!”

Nothing slowed Kai’s progress. And as Suho cleared the edge of the crowd, Kai had already cleared the edge of the tents.

“Kai! Get down!” he shouted.

Kai stopped, looking back at him, confused at his presence. There was no time. Suho looked to the direction the arrows had come from, and it took two strides to put himself in front of Kai.

“Get down!“

The air whistled and the impact of the arrow stunned him. The second hit, and he heard the screams over the roaring in his ears. He’d made it.

“Get down,” he said, head swimming. There could be more arrows. More pain. Hands gripped his sides, pulling him back before he could fall. Kai’s scent.

“Suho!” Kai shouted into his ear.

He wanted to see Kai’s face.

“You’re safe. Kai.”

But the darkness was too much.

***

The panic on Suho’s face. That was what Kai remembered, as he raced toward him and Kai tried to understand what it was that Suho wanted.

He knew the sound of weapon into flesh, but he denied it until Suho’s stagger. Suho, back to Kai, between him and someone with a bow trying to kill him.

“Suho. Suho.”

He heard only two words “safe” and “Kai” before Suho had sagged into his arms. People were afraid to help him, afraid of more arrows as he stood in shock with an unconscious man in his arms - and two arrows protruding from him.

“Run for the healers,” Kai said to anyone who would listen, ducking back into the tents with Suho still in his arms. His path sent people scattering ahead of him as he walked as quickly as he could.

Suho would not die.

***

The sound of the arrows pulled from Suho’s body made such a sound he knew he would never forget. But the sound from Suho’s throat was almost worse, as the pain seemed to rouse him from unconsciousness instead of sending him deeper.

He came fully out with a gasp, his eyes meeting Kai’s. Or so he thought until he realized Suho’s eyes weren’t focused. And his body convulsed, some kind of seizing Kai wasn’t sure what to make of— Until he retched, vomiting into Kai’s hands as they turned him, supported him. It was worry, distaste.

But it was terror, when he saw the blood. And when the convulsions stopped, and they pushed Suho back, he saw that Suho’s lips were stained red.

“Oh, please no,” Kai said.

He didn’t have to know much to know that was bad.

And the men around him murmured.

“He will not live through the night,” one said.

“Then find a way to save him! Find a way! Don’t stand here speaking of death before you consider how to save him!”

“There is nothing that can be done. We can prepare an infusion that will make his passing quicker.”

“No. Get out. Get out, all of you!”

It felt like his mind was shaking nearly as badly as his hands. He knew there was truth in what the men said. Suho was vomiting blood, which meant his injuries inside were severe.

“Sehun!”

It took mere moments, but Sehun was beside him. “Yes, sir?”

“You know everyone. You know all the rumors. You know of Suho’s power. Is there someone like him? Someone who could help him, whose power is secret?”

“There…There might be.”

“Fetch him. Promise him anything he desires. Fast, Sehun. He’s fading.”

Suho had already been so pale. And then to lose blood where they could not see.

“How did you know I was in danger?” Kai asked, squeezing Suho’s hand.

“I Saw…dream,” Suho said, and startled him. Suho’s eyes opened and they were wet. He was not crying. He would not cry. “Safe. Kai.”

“I am safe. Suho.” But it seemed Suho had again lapsed into unconsciousness. He watched, barely breathing as he watched Suho’s chest rise and fall. “Stupid. Stupid. I know your name means guardian, but you should not have stepped in front of me. What do I do? Suho, you are mine. You are not allowed to die until I tell you. You want to stay.”

His voice gentled with his hands, as he washed the blood from Suho’s face.

“We’ll eat breakfast in the morning. I’ll kiss you before you can take the plates away. You know that smile you get sometimes, when I pull you close. When you wipe the food from my face or greet me at my horse. I began to think you truly were glad to see me. Promise me you will eat with me.”

“The healer,” Sehun said, and Kai turned.

“Heal him. I don’t care what you have to do. He saved my life. Heal him.”

***


	6. Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.

***

The healer’s name was Yixing, which was of no account to Kai, who stood tense as Yixing touched Suho’s face and forehead, his chest and hands. The marking at his thigh. Not, peculiarly, the injuries. Kai looked away for only a moment, glancing at Sehun whose face was drawn in concentration watching as well. Sehun would have brought someone he thought could help, Kai assured himself. He was fond of Suho as well.

“Is there anything you can do?” Kai asked, too impatient to wait for Yixing to speak. Time was short. Suho could only last so long.

Yixing hummed, stood. “Perhaps. He is fighting to live inside. I can feel his thoughts. To heal him, he must be in a place that brought him joy, a place that can bind him. He draws power from the water. He dreams of it.”

Water. Kai thought of things Suho had told him. His previous life. “There was a pool at his temple, made of stone. He had a lot of happy memories there. But that is too far away!”

The healer frowned. “It is no pool made by man, because the bottom is silty. But he is being kissed by a man.”

Kai turned. “Me. That man is me. That place is just behind this tent.”

“Then you must take him there. Hurry.”

“But— They said if he moves—“

“He will die?” Yixing touched his arm. “He will die before the sun sets if you do not take him.”

It was nothing but the truth. Kai swung Suho into his arms, the weight of his prone body almost nothing. It was he who felt weak, staggering on trembling legs when Suho made no movement, no sound at the jostling. But Kai sank into the pool, onto his knees.

“Immerse him,” Yixing said. “His wounds must be beneath the water. It is the water we will call on for healing, because water calls his visions. Whether he lives or dies, he wants to be here in this place, with you.”

“How long does he have to stay in here?”

Suho’s limbs were carefully arranged in the cool water. Kai kept his head toward the bank, carefully resting on Kai’s arm so that he could still breathe. Even if his breathing was so slow, so ragged.

“Till the sun rises,” Yixing said, and did not waver at Kai’s startled look. “It is a long time, yes, but his body is badly damaged. If he is no better by then, there is nothing that can be done. His memories here might hold him.”

“He wanted me to kiss him?”

“I cannot say. It was only in his dream. Remind him of the reasons he has to stay. I will pray.”

Kai stared at Suho’s face, which still looked pained even in unconsciousness.

“Why did you step in front of me?” Kai asked. He smoothed Suho’s eyebrows with a wet finger. “You were so angry with me when we met. There was so much blood. You— Those aren’t reasons to stay. Your smile when I teased you. When you ate at my table the first time. Here in this pool when I—“

Kai pressed his lips to Suho’s slack ones. There was no response. Even when Suho had been angry at him, he had always responded to his kisses. Not just because he felt he had to, no. When he found it aroused Suho, he did it more often. It was their special connection, a conversation without words. When he had no way to speak the thoughts in his head, Suho’s mouth met his, Suho’s hands stroking through his hair. He remembered the first moan of pleasure that Suho had given him, so startled and unsure. As though he wondered if he should be silent, hide what he felt from Kai. But Kai had found a greed in himself, and he wanted all of Suho’s moans.

He remembered when Suho had spilled between them, and without order, or request, he had gasped Kai’s name. The proof of their pleasure, there, in Suho’s smiling eyes.

“You must smile for me again,” Kai told him. “Please.”

And he kissed Suho again, and again, pressing his lips to Suho’s chin, his cheeks and forehead. He listened for every breath as the sun went down.

“I won’t allow you to give your life for mine. Whatever you desire, you’ll have it. I would cover you in jewels, the finest silks. You would have the best horse. You can have my horse. I would kiss your fingers when you woke in my bed beside me and thank you for my life. Suho. Why do I feel you would want none of it? Except perhaps… The last. To greet each morning with me. I would be the slave of your happiness. When you wake, kiss me, so I know you want that, too.”

The water lapped at their bodies, and he spoke until he was hoarse, as the moon rose. He drew breaths with Suho, as though that would ensure they would keep happening. He didn’t know what magic felt like, wasn’t sure if he believed in it. But he knew Suho had a power unlike anything he’d known. But he tried to believe. If that power could heal, then perhaps there was a chance.

“Did you save me so that I could save you? I’ll sit with you in this pond as long as it takes.”

“The moon darkens,” Yixing said, speaking for the first time in hours, and making Kai jolt.

“Is that a bad omen?” Kai asked, touching Suho’s face. It felt warmer than before, and he was glad for a moment, before the worry took him. “He is hot. His skin.”

It was good, because it meant he was alive. But it was bad, because Kai did know what fever meant after injury. It meant danger. The body fought, some healers had said. Others said the body was readying itself for a pyre.

“Bathe his face,” Yixing said. “Keep him cool. The water will remind his body what to do.”

Suho breathed heavier as the moon lowered in the sky. Kai bathed his forehead, his cheeks in the water, smoothing the backs of his fingers along Suho’s skin, feeling the shiver in his own body at the night chill.

“I will keep you alive,” Kai said. “You will wake beside me. Together, we will punish who did this to you.”

Suho drew in a breath that rattled, and the panic shook him. It was the sound of a dying man.

“Suho. Yixing.”

Yixing waded beside them, pressing his hand to Suho’s face. “He is still warm. He feels your anger.”

“How can I not be angry? The longer we are here, the weaker he grows. Someone out there did this. They forced him to this.”

“No. He made this choice. He is in this pond because he chose to save you. He did not save you for your anger, so that you could think of hatred when his body needs to heal. You bury him with a thought. I thought you wanted to save him.”

Air hissed from between Kai’s teeth. “Are you saying I have to choose between him and finding who did this to him?”

“No. But you don’t hunt now. The water heals. But so do you. You are the moon holding his tide.”

“How much longer ’til dawn?”

“Too long,” Yixing said, and stood and returned to the bank.

“Breathe,” Kai whispered, moving his body closer to Suho’s. “Breathe. I’m here.”

Perhaps it was because he was getting used to the cool, but warmth flushed over him. Calm. As he smoothed cool water on Suho’s face and stroked through his hair. He let thoughts of anger and vengeance sweep aside in favor of feeling for Suho’s heartbeat, and willing the blood to stay in him and keep him whole.

“He said I am your moon. Then you must wake for me. When the sun rises you can open your eyes. I’ll take you on my horse. We’ll ride toward it together. I didn’t know I would find you. A pearl plucked from where it was hidden. You deserve to be worshipped. I could feed you with my own fingers. I would please you any way you wanted me to. Only let me find my end with you. Suho. I can’t— Who else would…?”

If Suho died, there would be an empty pallet in his tent, no man to listen to his babbles and give him advice. No man to bathe with him or kneel for him, or shudder at his hands.

He saw Suho’s eyes, dark, placid, and yet curious. Smart, thinking. A need to know, understand. A man interested in Kai’s problems, of no small wisdom of his own. He read, did figures. He could have done none of those things, and still caused the warmth Kai felt when he looked at Suho.

The tears that fell into the water were for what he feared he’d lost. And then the determination that he would have Suho back.

“Stay with me,” Kai whispered again, and kissed Suho’s heated cheek.

“Kai.”

Kai looked up at Yixing’s call. And squinted into the distance where the horizon was beginning to lighten.

“The sun is rising,” Kai said, speaking to Suho’s still face. “You will wake soon. Just keep breathing.”

He waited with every breath Suho took, slow and irregular. Sometimes seeming to struggle before the air came. And Kai willed the sun to rise. He knew if the light shone over the horizon, it would bring Suho strength.

The moon had set. And the shadows grew.

Suho shuddered in his arms as the sun broke over the horizon.

“No,” Kai said, lifting Suho’s head from where it had sunk back. Yixing was there in moments, grasping Suho’s hand and touching his head.

“Your duty here is done. He wants to be warm. Your bed.”

It was only with Yixing’s help that they lifted Suho from the pond. Every part of Kai’s body ached, cold and exhausted. They stripped Suho from his wet and bloody clothes, sliding him naked and dry between blankets. The wounds were so angry and dark against Suho’s pale skin, before they covered his wounds with thick cloth, and then covered him. Kai shivered as he stared down at Suho’s face.

“Watch,” Yixing said. And with a spoon, he parted Suho’s lips, dribbling liquid between them.

“What is that?”

“Tea mixed with broth. I had Sehun prepare it. It will fortify him. But look.”

Another dribble into Suho’s mouth, and his throat convulsed. A swallow.

Kai shuddered. “Does that mean..?”

“It means you should dry yourself, and sleep beside him. He needs you strong. I will urge him to breathe, but you will do that just as you are.”

Kai dried himself quickly, not even taking a moment to warm in the air before he was crawling beneath the blankets and furs to press against Suho’s side. Suho’s skin was chilled, and Kai stroked Suho’s arms hoping the friction would start to warm him. He wasn’t sure how he would sleep. The shivers began, though he fought to still himself so that he would not disturb Suho. They were from cold, and they were from fear.

Yixing held one of Suho’s hands in both of his, urging him to breathe and heal and stay. But Kai’s words would no longer come to him as he pressed his nose against Suho’s cheek. If he slept, Suho might think he was not being diligent, and slip away. He squeezed Suho’s hand in his, hoping for the slightest squeeze, some sign that Suho knew he was there. But there was nothing, just warming fingers clasped in his. But they warmed together. He slept, light and disturbed to the sound of Yixing’s murmurs and Sehun’s queries how to help. He dreamed to the sound of Suho’s breathing, dream of waking to Suho’s smile.

He woke some refreshed, though not to smiles because Suho would not wake. But still, Suho breathed.

***

Suho looked weak and frighteningly pale against the dark blankets. Yixing fed him, tended to his wounds and his health, and Kai watched. He saw the red welts against Suho’s skin, putting his fingers to his own body and tracing where they might have hit. The arrow that had hit high on Suho, might have pierced Kai’s heart. The one low, might have gone into his guts and preceded a slow and ugly death. Though Suho did not wake, he breathed, and he swallowed the broths, and water, and juices, that Yixing gave to him. He did not vomit blood again, or bleed where they could see. But the wounds could fester, and they could not see what evil lurked deep in Suho’s flesh.

Still, Kai rose when his father entered the tent.

“Father.”

“The slave lives. I thought him dead for sure, when you carried him back through the market.”

So had Kai, even if he had not yet admitted it. “He is strong. Perhaps he is rewarded for saving my life.”

It seemed Kai had hit upon something significant, the way that his father’s eyes narrowed at him.

“He saved you so peculiarly. As though he knew the arrow’s path. How would he know? Unless he had ordered them? Perhaps a moment of remorse?”

“No. No that is not possible,” Kai said, frowning. It would mean that all of Suho’s attentions to him, his smiles, had been devious, lulling Kai until Suho could kill him. It was not possible. “It was the result of a vision. He told me, before he lost consciousness.”

“What better way to explain away guilt?”

“You do not know him, Father. He was my slave. Until a man looks into your eyes after he has saved your life, you cannot take his measure. Do you believe I would have worked so hard to save him, if I believed he had anything to do with it?”

His father relented at that. “But he will need to be spoken to when he wakes. If he did have a vision, perhaps he will know who did it.”

“Unless we find out who before then. The men are searching, but they need someone to go to. Father, would you direct them?”

“It should be you. You are a grown man, and your enemies will not look on you with fear if you do not seek them out yourself.”

There was some truth in that, and yet Kai was not moved. He had ears and eyes in many places, so it was not as though he did wish to find out who had done it. For himself, and for Suho as well. But he did not feel he could lead the search, let anger overtake him when he was needed. Strength too came out of adversity, when it was clear he could not do everything himself.

“Suho is still weak. If nearly dying for me tied his life to mine, then I need to stay close to him to keep him from seeking a rest he will not wake from. I will be more help to you here.”

“So you will save the slave, and leave men out there willing to hurt you again. He might wake only to watch you die? Kai.”

And his father’s voice was displeased. Even disappointed.

“If you do not find them, I will with him beside me.” And Kai grinned a little. “Everyone saw Suho’s wounds. I carried him here with the arrows still in his body. If I can bring a man back from the dead, if I have a guardian strong as this, perhaps they will fear me even more.”

“They will fear his magic.”

“Then they will fear what happens to them after death. It is only you I trust to lead the men now.”

Mollified, his father left, and Kai relaxed. Sehun would be in with food for Kai, and for Yixing. Until then, he sat on the low stool beside the bed and stroked the backs of his fingers against Suho’s cheeks. Faintly warm. Alive.

***

“How is he?”

Kai looked up at Sehun, who could have been stomping through the tent for as much as Kai had been aware. It was so easy to just sit there and stare, examining every small thing about how Suho breathed, the movement of his lips. There was no longer a rattle his his breathing, but he was still too warm. They had only truly begun to learn each other, when the arrows had stolen Suho from him. But it was to be a temporary absence. Kai believed that, and would not stop believing it, until Suho got better or ceased to breathe.

“He’s eating what we feed to him, and he breathes,” Kai said, standing up and stretching his stiff back and legs. He kept hold of Suho’s hand and rubbed it as he stood there, staring at the way Suho’s cheeks had begun to lose their roundness. He was fading, even as they tried to hold him there. The frustration that rent from his throat hurt him, staring at Suho’s still hand, fingers that he had kissed. “I don’t know if I should expect more, or when.”

“Yixing seemed encouraged when he left this morning.”

Yes. He’d made an infusion of herbs, helping with Suho’s fever, with the pain, helping him to rest. What he needed was to heal, not to speak or to move, but Kai would have traded so much for a single word, a single opening of Suho’s eyes to see that he was still there, not just a husk.

Sehun knelt beside him, and it was a comfort to have someone else nearby, someone known to him, different than the crackling energy of his father.

“This is for him to hold,” Sehun said, holding out an amulet decorated in gold and dust-dulled stones. “It’s said that if death comes, it will turn it back.”

It was no mere trinket, old and worn though it was, and Sehun averted his eyes when Kai stared at him.

“Where did you get something this? Have you been hiding things from me? I know I gave you three coins, but it wouldn’t buy this.”

“I don’t— It’s not _mine._ ”

“You stole it?” Kai asked, and his tone was gleeful only because Sehun was squirming so much. He knew better. Though, if he thought it would help Suho maybe Sehun would’ve stolen something. But the situation wasn’t so desperate as that.

“It’s a loan,” Sehun corrected, mumbling even still and his ears going red.

Kai lifted the amulet to his nose, inhaling. “Smells like… cloth dye?”

Kai laughed outright, the sound almost painful after holding in so many feelings as Sehun punched his leg. They both stole a look behind them to make sure someone hadn’t seen. Some of those slaps and punches had been explained away by unusually fierce attacking bugs when they were younger.

“Yes,” Sehun hissed, utterly ruffled. “He knew Suho was ill and that he was my friend so he gave it to me, to us, for Suho. I hadn’t seen him since before Suho was injured so… I wish we’d had it then.”

Kai wasn’t sure he believed in the little amulet’s power, but he wasn’t one to disregard it, either. It wasn’t just something to help Kai believe in Suho’s safety, but something for Sehun as well, a gift - one that spoke of trust, affection.

“You’ll thank him for me?” Kai asked. “If he knows I know.”

“I’ll tell him. I could not have given it without you knowing. If you had found it…”

“That’s true. Does it go around his neck?”

“No!” Sehun said, shaking his head. “Idle hands could use it to choke the life from him.”

“They would still try?” Kai mused.

“If it brought them gain,” Sehun said. “But it’s better to be cautious even though I would say now that they should realize that he is worth more to them alive than dead. Because you would not rest until they saw their end.”

Kai stared at Suho’s limp hand, and frowned. Kai took the amulet’s cord and wrapped it around Suho’s wrist, tucking the flat amulet stone under Suho’s slave cuff.

“He can give you the amulet back, when he wakes,” Kai said, and Sehun nodded, sighing.

“I miss seeing him come in to get your food in the morning,” Sehun said, touching Suho’s arm. “And laughing at me while I was washing clothes. He never belonged in the temple, but here with us.”

Kai nodded, unable to even put voice to his agreement. And it was Kai’s arm that Sehun took next.

“You are the one who held him and kept him here, who made him want to stay.”

“I cannot count the things he has taught me, done for me,” Kai said, pressing the back of Suho’s hand against his cheek. “Things I never ordered.”

“You can’t demand that someone care,” Sehun agreed.

“My father wonders if he had something to do with the attack, if he stepped in because he was remorseful about having ordered my death.”

“Suho?” Sehun asked, and his incredulity echoed Kai’s. “Why would he have nearly gotten himself— He’s happy here! I would have known if he wasn’t.”

“I understand why my father might think it, but it would be like accusing my father or you of trying to have me killed.”

“Arrows are too impersonal,” Sehun said, trading a look with Kai. It was true. If his father wanted to have someone killed, it would be a knife and very close. But he did not want to think of killing with Suho there so still.

“I promised him so many things, and I meant them. He is not… He is so much more than he thinks.”

He deserved luxury and riches, but so much more than he surely thought to Kai as well. Not just a slave, though there was that boundary between them even when Suho smiled, sleepy and soft from the bed beside him. He’d had dreams of Suho waking, reaching for his face and pressing a kiss against his lips. He’d given Suho permission to touch, to use his name. He wondered if Suho had wanted to kiss him, to be closer. He wondered how much he had missed by holding still to the walls he thought should be there between master and slave.

“We will not miss him much longer,” Kai said, and did his best to believe it, as Sehun leaned against his side. Suho did not stir, did not do anything but breathe. So Kai took up the last book Suho had brought, and began to read to him. Let him be bound to words, to Kai, but alive.

***

A sound woke Kai from uneasy sleep, half slouched against a trunk beside the bed. At first he looked to see if Sehun had returned, or Yixing, and froze when he realized that Suho’s eyes were open.

“Suho,” Kai whispered, as though he spoke to a butterfly in danger of fluttering away. “Suho, it is Kai.”

He moved, until he was in Suho’s line of vision, touching Suho’s cheek with his fingertips.

“It is good to see your eyes,” Kai said. “I have been waiting for you to smile. Do you hurt? Are you hungry?”

Suho blinked, slowly, making Kai worry for a long moment that he would sleep again, but they opened, and words trapped in Kai’s chest would be held no longer.

“My name, my secret name is Jongin. You aren’t allowed to take that with you, so you can’t die. You have to fight to get better. You’re a guardian, and even your name declares it. You have to protect your life now, for me. I order it.”

He watched Suho breathe, the nearly blank eyes as Kai stared into them. He wondered if Suho was even seeing him, or knew he was speaking. And Suho took a breath, two. Another, his mouth opening. As though he were gathering strength.

“Joon…myun,” Suho breathed. Not even a whisper, on an exhale.

“Your name?” he asked, eager. And Suho’s eyes closed once, before opening again. Agreement. “Good. Then I’ll keep that for you until you’re well. I won’t call you by it until then. Something to wait for.”

Suho exhaled, and it was almost like a laugh. At least, Kai took it that way, even as Suho’s eyelids lowered, and his hand relaxed in Kai’s. His heart leaped.

“Suho. Suho. Joonmyun.”

He heard only the steady, shallow breathing.

Suho slept, and Kai waited.

***

Watching Suho come back to himself was one of the hardest things Kai had ever done. It was not, as Kai had hoped, some kind of magical fix. Suho did not wake with any dawn ready to ride with him, or anything of the like. When he could stay awake for more than five minutes, it felt like they’d scaled mountains. He spared smiles for Sehun, for Yixing, for Kai. Just seeing that expression on Suho’s face made him feel like things were almost right, except that Suho was weak, he was sore, and the wounds were still a danger.

The magic had been in Suho’s spared life.

Kai slept beside him, Sehun on the floor on the other side, and Kai’s whole body was tight as they supported Suho as he sat up for the first time. Suho clutched at the wound on his stomach, a helpless moan leaving him as they shoved pillows behind him and let him relax.

“How is that?” Kai demanded.

“My head doesn’t want to roll off my shoulders,” Suho said, the edges of his mouth curling as he looked to Kai. “Thank you.”

His voice was still soft, his lips pale, but the day after that they let him lift his own water cup to his mouth, and the next, spoon food for himself. He seemed to relish those accomplishments, getting demanding about wanting to sit up, not wanting to become a part of the bed. Kai watched Suho watch Sehun, like he was envying the way that Sehun was cleaning up, the way he was able to do things like bring Kai his food. Though that, that Kai caught onto, eating at Suho’s bedside instead of removed at the table. At least it let Suho feel like he wasn’t completely cut off.

And Kai both dreaded and welcomed the day when Suho asked to stand, and even then not just to stand but to walk.

“Just the length of the tent and back,” Suho said, determined, his legs vibrating where he’d draped them over the edge of the bed. “If I can.”

It was an amendment. Kai calmed himself that between Sehun and him, they could hold Suho up if he felt weak or lightheaded. He wanted to protest. He wanted to give it time. He’d expected Yixing to support him, but all Yixing had done was look at Kai.

“He will know better than you or I when he is ready.”

Which he supposed was a truth. But that didn’t keep him from worry as one of Suho’s arms looped around his neck, the other holding his stomach as Sehun helped to lift him as well. Slowly, Suho pushed himself up until he stood, swaying into Kai’s body and breathing harsh into his shoulder.

Kai opened his mouth to ask how Suho felt and saw Sehun glaring at him, a finger at his lips. Right. He’d let Suho control how fast, how much. Though, for a searing moment he let his worry if Suho would collapse fall away, and realized that Suho was standing, pressed against him as he’d only truly started to before the arrows. He was standing. Alive. Awake. Suho squeaked, not a sound of pain, when Kai gripped him tighter for a long moment. He wasn’t waiting, wondering if Suho would die any longer.

“I’m ready,” Suho breathed, and for a moment they looked at each other. Suho was worried and exhilarated and Kai for a moment fought the urge to laugh and spin him.

He wasn’t yet that well. So instead he let Suho go, feeling like he was letting some knot inside of him go as well, letting Suho latch onto his arm, and then to Sehun’s. It wasn’t as though Suho had forgotten how to walk, just that none of them knew how much stamina he had after so many days lying down. Just standing had been the hardest part, making sure he would not collapse. The steps he took were at first tentative, getting a feel for his footing, for his legs.

“How does it feel?” Kai asked, concerned when Suho gave some kind of gurgling laugh.

“It hurts! Oh, it’s wonderful!” Suho said, and Kai sent a confused look to Sehun.

But he didn’t speak after that, turning slowly with them at the edge of the tent, and walking back to the bed. Suho sat carefully, even though it was clear he wanted to be seated badly, and his face was flushed, his eyelashes dark and damp.

Kai touched his cheek, swallowing down any emotion that wanted to well. “That’s only the start,” he promised Suho.

And he watched as Suho squeezed both their hands and tried not to give in to the tight feeling in his throat.

***

The stronger Suho got, the less he welcomed the help. Kai understood that, in a way, having recovered from a wrenched leg when he was young and ready to be free of the fussing over him. Suho wanted to be free to walk the tent, and when Kai tried to order him otherwise, Suho was like an immoveable boulder. It was still his tent, and Suho compromised that he would only when someone was there to make sure he didn’t fall. He understood why Suho would want the freedom to get up, to relieve himself on his own, but he still worried that Suho would injure himself by breathing, much less walking around on his own.

“I haven’t fallen over yet,” Suho said, and it was all cheek directed at Kai as he gingerly held his stomach and walked the length of the tent and back again. He didn’t shuffle as he had days before, didn’t wince in pain except when he twisted, or sat down, or rose up again.

“Does it pain you much when you walk?”

“I can feel it there,” Suho said, standing still, curling his toes into the rug and swaying a bit as he thought. “As long as I don’t breathe too deeply, or cough, or stretch. But I suppose I need to do some of that so it won’t pain me the rest of my life when I do more than stand upright.”

“As long as you don’t break it open,” Kai said, not liking the sound of any of that at all. The thought of Suho in lasting pain, pain that could follow him every day of his life, that was unacceptable to him.

Suho just sighed at him, walking back to the bed and carefully settling upon it beside Kai. He was not allowed to lift more than his own bowl, his own water cup, but he would be well enough to do even more things beyond that soon enough. Kai looked Suho over, taking in how thin he had gotten, and how much better he looked even then. When Suho looked toward him, he seemed surprised to see Kai looking back at him, though only for a moment. Suho reached down, pressing a hand to the blanket beneath them and waiting a moment before he spoke.

“You’ve allowed me the use of your bed for a good while,” Suho said, staring down at the fingers he twisted together. “I think I’m strong enough, if you’d rather I return to my pallet…”

Strong enough, maybe. Also self-sacrificing if he thought he was causing Kai an inconvenience.

“It would be too much for you to try to crawl up off of the ground,” Kai said, dismissing that thought entirely. “You sleep still and quiet, so you aren’t disturbing me. A better sleep should help you heal swiftly.”

And Kai would be closer for those times he woke, listening to be sure that Suho still breathed.

“You’ve had no one to see to your needs,” Suho said, and when Kai looked to him, Suho’s cheeks had gone red even as he met Kai’s eyes.

“I have managed on my own,” Kai said.

He hadn’t forgotten how to use his own hand to find release. A tingle spread over his skin as Suho’s hand spread against his wrist, gripping it, gentle, as though Kai would shake him off. He’d touched Suho so many times, and Suho had reached for him some of those times as well. He didn’t know what it was about that simple touch that made him react so. Maybe because all they had been focused on had been living, had been on Suho existing, beyond anything else. If Suho pressed against him in the night, Kai did not push him away, but enjoyed the closeness of it. But he didn’t dare do more than the hugs they had shared when Suho stood, or lending himself as someone for Suho to lean on, to rely on.

“I miss it,” Suho said, and though the words themselves were shy, there was also some thoughtfulness to it as well. “I wondered if I— When I arrived, and I saw to your pleasure, it was a duty. When I began to know you, it wasn’t any longer.”

“You told me you did not want me to seek out another,” Kai said, and watched Suho’s head bob, a sharp nod as he drew air through his teeth. “I have not.”

“It would be your—“

“Don’t tell me it would be my right,” Kai said, his words abrupt as Suho’s fingers tightened around his wrist. “I know what I am able to do, and I have been focused on finding the man or men who did this, and seeing you well. There is time for that. Your hair has faded.”

It was an observation, something he really hadn’t noticed even when Suho had sat in the sun, basking like a little marmot. He touched it, dark and even, longer than Suho usually wore it, and Suho’s hand flew up as well.

“I will have Sehun help me with it,” Suho said, offering it with a kind of desperation.

“You do not need to. I like it this way as well.” And Kai cleared his throat, stood, waiting for Suho’s hold on his wrist to loosen. “I have tasks to see to. You will rest for a while?”

He waited until he had Suho’s agreement to his near order, and he left the tent, feeling jittery for no good reason that he could tell.

***


	7. Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.

***

The better that Suho felt, the more he saw, and heard. Kai watched him at times, sometimes because he worried, but other times Suho wondered what was going through Kai’s head. When Suho approached the bed, grateful after sitting up to crawl back into it, he remembered when Kai crawled above him, kissed him until he was breathless. He didn’t know if he could sustain it, but it didn’t keep him from wondering, and wondering too if Kai thought of it. There had been not so many nights where Suho had not touched Kai, had not enjoyed sharing his pleasure with Kai. His body was healing, but it wasn’t devoid of want. He had, a few times, braced his stomach and brought himself to a quick end. Kai had been out, and Sehun not hovering, and it had felt delicious, like he was temping fate, doing something forbidden. The first time he’d ended up gasping, but he’d learned to pace himself. He didn’t feel right asking it of Kai, waiting until Kai was ready. He had told Kai he missed it, but Kai still had not asked him for anything.

When the light was out and he relaxed, he heard Kai turn onto his side and felt the shift of the cover, rhythmic and quick. It happened one night. Two. Again, a few nights later. Kai had told him he did it, had not tried to hide it. But it was different than knowing, and listening to it, knowing there was something that he could do to help, and flushing in the dark as he imagined how Kai looked when he was pleased.

And Suho paused before he blew out the light one night, looking up and down the line of Kai’s body beneath the blanket.

“Do you have a need tonight?” Suho asked, and Kai looked to him, confused, almost insulted almost. “Maybe my body isn’t healed enough for more, but my mouth is not broken.”

Oh, and that, Kai understood. He sat up, solemn.

“I promised myself when you began to wake that I would not ask it of you until you were fully healed. And then, you could decide what you wanted.”

“If you think to wait until the marks leave my body, you will be waiting longer than either of our lives,” Suho said, and felt almost glad when Kai scowled.

“That isn’t what I mean, and you know it. You can barely stand without bracing your stomach.”

“Sometimes it feels like it will burst open,” Suho sighed. Even if that did not help his argument, he knew Kai knew that already. Even if he knew his stomach would not part, there was still pain there, and it helped him to stand without worry. Suho blew out the light and watched the residual glow for a moment before easing onto the bed.

“Does it seem like I’m demanding only what I want?” Kai wondered. “I just don’t want to take from you what I can’t give you back. I don’t want you to worry.”

“When I am ready, you can believe me,” Suho said. And it was a promise that warmed him as much as the hand that Kai squeezed around his. Connection, closeness. He felt Kai’s care in that, and he let his exhaustion pull him down.

***

_Suho ran, oh, he ran until his lungs were burning, careening off of solid stone walls, and through pools that pulled at him, wafting smoke, and sounds of screams, and he ran, Kai just out of sight, just beyond his protection. The arrows hovered around his head, taunting him, jabbing at his sides, his neck, and his arms would not lift to catch them, to move them away._

_But the arrows that pierced them, he saw, roaring toward him wreathed in red. The pain ran through his veins like fire, piercing through him, screaming as he gagged and vomited rivers of blood, he fell but did not hit the ground, reaching for Kai whose face swam in front of his eyes, reaching for him. To help, for help, he had to get there. He’d caught the arrows. It was all for nothing. All for nothing as Kai’s reaching hand went limp, cold when he grasped it, sifting through his fingers like sand that whisped away as he tried to grasp it, to gasp for air, to—_

Suho’s chest burned as he gasped, clawing at the blanket over him and trying to sit up, to reach for Kai. The pain. The pain. He whimpered as he clutched at his stomach, the wound near his shoulder aching. The tent was dark. It had been a dream. And Kai was stirring beside him.

“Suho? Are you all right?”

For Kai to have woken, he had to have been loud and wild.

“It was just a dream,” Suho said. Not a vision, no. There had been no tinge of that. But Suho curled onto his side. Where he could have comforted himself, after the dream, he could not help himself, pressing his face into the center of Kai’s warm chest and feeling his heart beat beneath. He waited for a moment, breathing, wondering if Kai would push him away.

Kai stilled but did not move him away, and Suho closed his eyes even tighter as Kai touched his shoulder, his hair.

“Of the arrows? Do you dream of that?”

So many times when he’d been ill, it seemed. If he’d been only a little quicker, he could have pushed Kai down. He dreamed of avoiding them, of them chasing him, of blood, of being cold in death, of screams, of Kai writhing in pain and dying in his arms. He’d dreamed of solace, too, of Kai’s smile, of the rhythm of his voice rumbling against Suho’s ear, of holding his hand, and resting sleepy against him. When the arrows threatened, he ran to Kai. Always to Kai.

“I dream of it,” Suho said. “I dream of racing through the market to reach you. I dream of being too late, of dying, or watching you die. I didn’t want to die.“

And he gasped, the words choking in his throat as Kai half turned to him, wrapping his arm around Suho’s shoulders and breathing against his hair.

“But we both are still alive. I wasn’t going to allow you to die.”

“Because I took the arrows for you?”

Kai’s breath hissed out of him. “We still hunt for the archer. There are so many whispers of who and why. My father hunted, when you were still in danger.”

“You never speak of it.”

“I thought it would upset you,” Kai said. “Or. Maybe I worried it would upset me, I don’t know. It’s easier to focus on finding who did it, so they don’t hurt anyone else.”

Outside of the tent, there were so many things that could harm Kai. Being thrown from his horse, an arrow, or even poison. “You’re careful?”

“Yes. I won’t put your sacrifice to waste by seeing their arrow find me now, nor some dagger in my back.”

Horror seized him, his hand tightening on Kai’s side.

“What would… What would become of me then?” Suho wondered.

They would not even speak of it. They didn’t then. Kai would not have allowed him to die, he said, and so Suho would not either, not even in his mind. Maybe it was that determination, or the way that Kai did not force him to move away that soothed him, but he slept dreamless until the sun had risen. Sehun woke them with a small clatter at the table, and Kai rose, scratching at his chest and meeting Suho’s eyes with a small smile.

“Can I sit at the table today to eat?” Suho asked, desperate.

Kai was surprised, halfway there, and Sehun had the tray in his hands meant for Suho’s lap. Sehun looked to Kai, and Kai to Sehun, and Suho fidgeted in the silence before Kai nodded, giving his assent. But he didn’t dine alone, leaning against Sehun as Sehun fetched more food and they all shared their meal together. Suho watched Kai across from him and was thankful. It seemed strange to think it, but even if he still had pain, he had Kai. He was alive. Kai, of his tent would live. He believed it.

***

They did not catch the archer with a bow in his hands, or cackling over arrows. But they did catch him. There were spies, and whispers, and what surprised Kai when he walked into the tent where the archer was being held, was that the face was not unfamiliar to him. He did not have a name to put to the face, but it was a man who had been among the markets and tents for many years, half of Kai’s life it seemed.

“I hear you have a good hand with a bow and arrow,” Kai said, sitting across from the man, assessing him. Kai’s father remained standing, but he was no less alert.

“My father taught me how to hunt when I was small.”

Kai tilted his head. “And when did you begin to move to hunting humans?”

“Enough coin makes many things worthwhile.”

He did not even try to deny it. And for coin, such a reason to take a life. “Why were those arrows directed at me?”

One of the archer’s shoulders jerked. “I didn’t ask. Sometimes it’s better not to know.”

“If you don’t know why,” Kai said. “Then I do want to know who. Do you know that at least? Who paid you?”

There was a slow nod, acknowledgement. “It was a man who called himself Suho.”

Kai stood, grabbing the man’s shirt and giving him a hard shake until he got a sound of distress. “You lie!”

“Kai!” his father barked.

“Tell me the truth, and tell it quickly,” Kai said, but he didn’t let go of the archer.

“He said his name was Suho. He wore a hood, gave me ten silver coins and told me where you would be that day. He said he came from some kind of temple so he could make a blessing on me.”

Kai pushed him back, satisfied and disgusted. “Suho has never seen a silver coin in his life, and he made no blessings.”

“Perhaps he knew enough to fake them?”

Kai shook his head, turning to his father. “He was a guardian of the temple, keeper of some pieces of paper and sticks of wood. And even if he could pretend, he would have had no access to money of that kind. When I left a copper coin, he returned it to me. And he rarely left the tent alone.”

“He would not have had to have left if someone went to him, allowed him to become complicit.”

Kai laughed. “So someone went to my tent, gave my slave money, who then found an archer to shoot me in a place he didn’t know I’d be. And then, he threw himself in front of me, taking the arrows meant to kill me?”

“The regret of guilt.”

“Of loyalty,” Kai corrected. “He Saw my death not minutes before he ran in front of me.”

“And you trust him?”

“Sooner than I would trust this scum. Why would a man admit his own identity, when he could pretend to be my slave?”

It was good the archer did not smirk at him when Kai turned back to him, because Kai wasn’t sure what he would have done if he had seen that. The man’s life was forfeit, would be once they had gotten everything they needed. It was not for Suho’s injury that the man would be punished, but how close the arrows had come to taking Kai’s life instead. It made his lip curl. As though Suho’s life was less important than his own.

“We found you,” Kai said. “We’ll find who paid you. Father?”

Kai left the tent, anger coiled in him as his father asked him more of Suho, of his demeanor, of his obedience.

“Slaves who are not born to it sometimes find it hard to conform,” his father said. “Have you been too soft with him?”

“He had his discipline, but he was not a slave that needed taming. He is a hard worker. Even after the arrows, he strains himself to be able to work.”

“To keep you from suspicion?”

“He is not that kind of man. I would know it. We will find who is behind it, but it is not my slave.”

They parted, he and his father, and Kai did not care if his father was convinced or not. He knew, and that was enough. They would continue their search, and they would find who was responsible. The only other choice was to hope that they were discouraged, and would not make another attempt. He didn’t think Suho would be able to survive any more injuries.

In the door of the tent, Kai paused, studying Suho’s face. Suho was sitting, but he wasn’t idle, reading as Kai had expected. Instead he was folding clothes that Kai assumed Sehun had brought to him. He looked good, face contorting in thought as he twisted cloth and smoothed it. That was the sight of home, Suho waiting for him there. For a moment, Kai wondered if he should tell Suho of the archer’s claims. He knew the reaction he would get, horror, denial. It was a stress upon all of the other stresses that Suho already had, from his healing body to feeling useless that he could not do what he thought he should do. Slaves were not typical ornaments, and perhaps in another tent, Suho would have been pushed to work sooner, but not in his.

When Kai ducked further into the tent, Suho looked up, face going immediately guilty when Kai walked in, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. For a moment Kai wanted to laugh, As though Suho could have hidden a discontent that would have led to Kai’s death.

“I begged Sehun to let me help, at least somehow. All I could do was sit and talk with him while he washed and hung it up,” Suho explained before Kai could say a word. “It doesn’t hurt when I do this.”

“That’s good to know.”

Kai settled himself on the ground, near enough to watch Suho, but not so close that he was in the way. He knew better than to touch, to offer to help, not wanting the glare that would come with it. Suho would know his limit, though with Kai there watching, he’d undoubtedly use that determination to see it through.

“Are you happy?” Kai asked, leaning forward to pick at the corner of a fraying seam.

The look Suho sent him was incredulous, as though Kai asked him if the ground beneath him was made of clouds.

“I’m alive, and getting stronger,” Suho said. “You are well, and so is Sehun Everything is feeling normal again. It is… It is a new chance.”

All of it was true, but not entirely the answer Kai had been seeking. “Would you want the temple again?”

Suho let out a sound near to a snort, beginning to fold again as though the topic amused him. “Perhaps when I am old, a temple with warming waters would be nice. I could make sure that all the apprentices have food, and that the patrons don’t prey on them. But that would be many years from now. There is too much life to live. If I was in a temple, I wouldn’t see where this tent would move next.”

“Just the tent?” Kai asked, and Suho laughed, folding the last cloth in his hand.

“Wherever the tent goes, you will. I’ll get to see you dismount from your horse when you return, when you walk in to greet me, or..hold me.”

Kai held out a hand, patient as Suho all but crawled closer to grasp it and let Kai pull him against his side. “Like this?”

“That is one way,” Suho murmured, meeting Kai’s eyes. They were dark and thoughtful and those eyes had never changed. “Why do you ask me those things when you already know?”

Kai shook his head, leaning in to brush his lips against Suho’s.

“Many things have changed. I just wanted to be sure that we felt the same.”

Suho smiled at him so brightly after the kiss, pressing his face into Kai’s collarbone and falling into some half sleep as Kai held him. It was not Suho, but it was someone who knew them, who had reason to dislike Kai and want him dead. Sehun ducked into the tent for only a moment before spotting them, ducking right back out with a grin on his face, leaving them so that Suho could rest.

***

Most of what Suho did every day couldn’t be considered work, at least not to him. Though, it felt like it sometimes, exhausting him. He took less naps as days wore on, and when he had none of the simple tasks to do - he could only dust so often- he walked around the tent, crouched and bent and gently twisted. He stretched his arms up, moving them slow and feeling the skin pull around the wound on his shoulder. But it pulled a little less, hurt so much less. He could reach over his head to grip something without holding his breath in concentration. When Kai had come home the night before, and he’d pulled Suho in, he’d been able to wrap his arms around Kai’s shoulders and hold him without fear of pain. He was healing. One day, even Kai would be able to believe it, and he wanted to see the smile when Kai had no doubts. He would have his hair trimmed, give it the red glow that Kai liked. It would be perfect.

Suho paused at a shadow along the tent, watching as it grew larger, a man pushing under the flap. He looked so official, standing there, that Suho was taken off guard for a moment.

“I am sorry, my master is not home,” Suho apologized.

“You are the slave, Suho?”

Suho frowned. “Yes, that is my name.”

Suho stiffened in alarm as a man stalked in from the other side of the tent, approaching him with such speed that Suho barely had time to brace himself before he was being pulled off balance, a gloved hand covering his mouth that smelled of something sickly and made his head swim. His cry of pain was muffled as he was lifted, twisted, pressure on his wounds that sent discomfort shooting through him. Maybe he made a sound, maybe he tried to fight, but he was so dizzy, bound and dropped into a wagon bed with a sack over his head. He breathed through the cloth in his mouth, grunting at the bumps, the sickening sway. It felt like hours, years, before it stopped, and Suho shouted in alarm as he was pulled out, feet first. His shoulder hit the ground before anything else, jolting him, and he groaned, lifted by his ribs and feet by two men and carried. But that wasn’t long before they knelt and lowered him. He tried not to squirm, wondering what was happening to him. They dropped him, not hard and not far, but he only truly knew where he was when one of them ripped the sack off of his head, and with it, the rag from his mouth. He was underground, he realized. Not under, but down beneath, on rocky soil. Above him, three feet of dirt on either side.

For a moment, he thought: a grave.

“You will see the sky from here, but your master will never find you,” the man laughed at him. “Did you See this, too, little witch?”

“No!” he nearly shouted when he realized they meant to leave him there. But his voice was a dry croak, and a covering of wood that had been lashed together was placed over the hole he was in. He heard the orders, move the rocks. Boulders, holding down the wood, trapping him. “No, please don’t leave me here!”

“They found the archer,” one of the men told him. “Now it is time to finish what we started.”

They meant to go after Kai again.

“Please! Please help me!” he shouted, and herd only the sounds of laughter, of horses being mounted, of the wagon starting to move. They grew fainter and his chest grew tighter, lifting his bound hands to press against the wood. He could see through it, but all he could see was the sky. He didn’t know how far away from the encampment he was, if there was anyone around him at all. Perhaps they meant him as ransom, a lure. But the reality that they could leave him there to die was the heaviest weight on him. Kai wouldn’t even know he was in danger. He would return to the tent, and it would be empty. If they killed Kai, if no one thought to look for Suho, they might think he had something to do with it. But he would be dead, too, of hunger, or thirst, and he would be already in the ground.

Tears spilled from the corner of his eyes, and he pressed his hands up and shouted, “Kai!” Oh, it croaked from him. “Kai! Kai. Kai. Please, can anyone hear me!”

A sob choked him, and he dug his nails into his hands to gather himself. No. He couldn’t panic. If he cried, he lost water from inside of him. He needed to keep all of that he could.

He wiped one of the tears from his cheek onto the back of his hand. Perhaps he could not See it or perhaps the answer wasn’t there, but he could not See how to help himself, or what would happen.

***

Suho timed himself, tried not to wear out his voice or use up his strength. Every couple of minutes he would shout, and he would hear the wind in response. It had only been a few hours since he’d been taken, at least he thought it had been. It was perhaps even possible that no one had yet noticed he was gone.

The sound of a horse had him tensing, and he reached for the wood.

“Is someone there! Please, can you help me! Hello? Please!”

“Cry all you want. You do our job for us. If he hears you he will die quicker.”

Suho’s heart sank, realizing it was one of the men who had brought him there. But the man was still there, so there was still a chance perhaps he would be set free, that something would help him go back to the tent.

“Did you want to be sure I still lived?” Suho asked.

“You wouldn’t die in a few hours, not unless something nasty got down in there with you. Or perhaps, if it was raining. We have found another use for you.”

Suho was shaking as the rocks were rolled back, the wood moved. He climbed out, stiff, in pain, and stumbled alongside the horse to just down the road where the wagon waited. In it, he collapsed, grateful, not sick as he had been before, staring at the boards and waiting as it rolled. As long as he wasn’t put back into the ground, he could endure it.

When they stopped, it was in a small encampment, and Suho accepted the water skin, drinking greedily as he sank onto the dirt.

“What do you want from me?” he asked, looking up at the two men who stood by the tent.

“We want you to be what delivers Kai to us. Or to the earth, we don’t mind.”

“You may try to use me, but I will not help you to see any harm come to Kai. If that is your goal in holding me, it is a useless one.”

They were armed, as well. He could not run. Though if there was a way to warn Kai, he tried to think of it. He was no strategist. His goal in the temple had been to hide, but there was nowhere to hide there, and no way to do it.

“Shall I give you a dagger to see your danger to Kai's life ended, then?”

“What would that serve?” Suho wondered. “You would use my body to accomplish the same.”

“And yet you stare at my sword. You could not even lift it with two hands. Perhaps you mean to take it from me when my guard is down.”

“As long as one is alive, all things are possible,” Suho muttered.

“If Kai rides to save you and you slay your captors, it would be a touching scene. You mean to protect him?”

It made Suho shudder. “I am the servant of my master. He will not die because of me.”

“Because he saved you? I saw the arrows fly and sink deep in your body. Perhaps he has magic. Another reason to see him gone from our tents.”

“He has no magic,” Suho scoffed. “The arrows did not fly true. It was my reward for seeing my master safe, to have my life spared.”

“He will not think you lucky but regretful. They have our friend. He will tell them you paid him to have your master killed.”

“Me! The man who feeds me and sees me safe, I would kill him? His father is not so kind. I would not do myself a favor.”

“Revenge has no logic if he plucked you from your home,” the man said, crouching near him. “It festers.”

They tried to turn him, to see if he fostered some ill will, and so clumsily. “Not in me. If your man tells them I am to blame, what use would my master have to find me except to see me dead of his own hand? Or do you mean to see if I harbor resentment? Because you will not find it.”

Suho took a short, sharp breath as a knife point was pressed into his skin. “Perhaps I should do your master’s job for him, since he will not live to do it himself.”

“His is stronger than you think. I am his— I am his guardian. I will be until I die, whether at his hand or yours.”

“Death is kinder than slavery.”

Oh, once he would have thought it, too, but he met his captors eyes. “I don’t wish to die. I want to go home to my master’s tent. He has done nothing for you to hate him. If he had, he would make it right.”

“Bring the boy,” the man said, and Suho looked where he commanded, feeling his stomach drop as Sehun was pushed from the tent, bound, gagged, his eyes wide as he saw Suho.

“He is not Kai’s slave!” Suho said.

“But he is of Kai’s tents. Perhaps if you will not tell us what we need, he will.“

Suho almost laughed. They had brought the two slaves of the tents least likely to have a reason to see Kai hurt. The first fist into Sehun’s side sounded hollow, but the second one had a sharp sound that had both him and Sehun crying out.

“Stop, please!” Suho begged, reaching for the man’s arm. “Please, you must not hurt him. I’ll tell you the color of the sky, I will use my Sight, but you will get no help from me if you hurt him again.”

Suho fell back from the back of the man’s hand against this face. His lip stung but at least Sehun was being left alone.

“If you want something from me, hurt me,” Suho said, his eyes steady as he stared up at the man. “But you already know my answer.”

Suho shivered as his shirt was pulled up over his head, dangling over his bound hands.

“Perhaps the archer was right, and you did pay him to kill your master.”

“I would never,” Suho said.

“But that’s what your master will think,” the man say, glee in his voice. He heard something draw. A whip. A knife. It didn’t matter. Suho braced for the pain.

***

The tent had been empty, and the work tent where Suho and Sehun often worked together. None of the other slaves had seen Suho, no one near the horses, or in the market. Suho’s boots and sandals were still in the tent, and he would not have walked far without them. It was as though Suho had flown away somehow.

“I saw…I think it was him,” a slave said, melting back against a tent wall when Kai approached. “But he did not walk from your tent. A man, tall, carried him. If it was your slave, he was not awake.”

“What did the man look like?” Kai demanded.

“I don’t know. His head was covered by a hood. It looked strange, so I told the lord but he told me to go back to work.“

“My father?” Kai interrupted.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Kai said, and didn’t wait for any further information, instead striding into his father’s tent with a purpose. There at least he found satisfaction, his father resting, eating, and Kai waited for his father to acknowledge him, something ingrained in him since he could walk. So Kai sat, and he waited, and was granted what he wanted.

“Yes, my son?”

“I have spent most of the last hour looking for Suho, the slave I took from the temple. I had news that a hooded man carried him from my tent. He is still injured. A slave asked you of it? What—“

“It was one of my men who took him,” his father said, interrupting Kai without thought. “Waste your time no further.”

“I…What?” Kai asked. “Why would you take my slave from my tent?”

“I warned you when it happened that he might have saved you out of guilt. You left it to me to find the archer, and I did. And you heard that same man who tried to kill you say this slave of yours is the one who paid for his services.”

“And I told you he did not. If Suho truly stopped their attack, do you not think he or whoever paid him would have reasons to want him from my side? He has already saved my life once. How would he have paid? How—”

“He would not be the first slave to steal from his trusting master. You were too blinded by his supposed sacrifice to see. Answers had to be found. Punishment meted. He is your slave, but you are still my son.”

Kai pushed himself onto his feet. “Punishment!”

Their version of punishment for so grave a crime would not be light, death often preceded by great pain.

“He is still alive,” his father said, scowling at Kai’s outburst. “I may have taken it upon myself to find answers, but it would be your right to choose the manner of his death if he is truly to be blamed. My men are extracting answers from him as we speak.”

It was such a gross breach of trust that Kai nearly trembled. A man’s slaves were his own. “Take me to him.”

“At sunset the man questioning him will be here to tell me what he has learned. We’ll decide then.”

Kai grit his teeth together as he imagined Suho in front of him, holding his tunic and begging him to speak to his father rationally or risk being disregarded. Suho had been wise then. And it calmed him then.

“Thank you, Father.”

But Kai did not wait in the tent with his father, returning to his own, to the quiet of it, and watching for the messenger. He wanted to know everything, and the sun lowered too slowly for his liking when he knew that Suho was somewhere, possibly being hurt because of him. Again.

***

His father’s man arrived not long after the last of the sun had fallen beneath the horizon, and Kai was only steps behind him when he entered the tent. Kai took his place to the side, his stomach in knots as he wanted to growl out for the man to speak faster, to give them his report.

“Tell us what you have discovered,” his father said.

“We locked him in the underground box, the small one that feels as though a man is being buried alive. The first two hours, he did not call for us, or beg or plead, only called the name of your son, over and over. When we took him from the box, we told him we meant to kill his master. That we had tried and he had foiled our plots. He told us that he would not help us. We offered him coin and freedom, spoke ill of slavery and his master. When he did not bend, we threatened the other slave.”

Kai looked to his father. “What other slave?”

“Sehun. I know they are close.”

“You let them take Sehun?” Kai asked, incredulous. He had wondered, since Sehun could not be found either, but Sehun had been with them his whole life. And to the man, “So Sehun was threatened. What did Suho do then? Confess his hatred of me?”

“No, my lord. He told them that Sehun was innocent, not a slave of your tent as he was. When he could see the boy was in pain, your slave asked us to beat him instead, if we wished, but he would not tell us the things we wanted. We told him that if he were to take poison to your tent, it would be quick. And he told us he had taken two of our arrows to see you live, and that your end would not come by his hands.”

“And did you beat him?” Kai asked, sounding surprisingly calm to his own ears.

“Enough to see if he would break, but he did not. He bargained with us, my lord. Said if we believed there was a blight on his master’s name, his master would make it right. When I left, I told him that if he would not help us to kill you, he would be our lure. He only held his tongue to keep the other slave from harm.”

“It does not prove his innocence,” Kai’s father said. “That determination could be that of a very guilty man.”

“Or a very loyal one,” Kai replied.

“When we told him the archer captured would blame him, he said if his master believed it then his master would do our job and kill him instead.”

“He thinks he has you fooled,” his father said, scowling.

“No, my lord. He felt that to have survived the arrows, it was his purpose to stay beside his master to protect him, his reward for being true. He said he had Seen the arrows, and if it was his death that would cause that protection then so be it. He was willing to die at the point of my knife if he did not help us. We did find this.”

Suho’s slave cuff, the laces cut, and the amulet Sehun’s merchant had given to help protect Suho tumbled onto the table.

“This is not an amulet of a slave. Payment for the attack?” his father asked, staring hard at Kai, even as Kai shook his head.

“I tied that amulet on his wrist myself when he lay half dead, to protect him. He has been loyal to me, Father. Believe your man, if you will not believe me.”

“If I had doubt, I would say,” his father’s man said. “I think to look further at him is to look in the wrong direction. You do have his loyalty. He would not even pretend to accept the poison to save his own life.”

“Then I would like permission to bring him back to my tent,” Kai said, his voice insistent. He did not feel he had to ask for permission, but he would be damned if he left without it.

“It has put most of the doubt from me at least. I’ll allow him back, unless we find something to change my mind.”

There wouldn’t be anything. That Kai knew without any doubt.

***

It wasn’t quite as destroying as it had been to see Suho bleeding and pale on his bed. Instead of fear, it was anger to see Suho curled on his side in some muddy pit, chained and shirtless. He didn’t look up at the sound of approaching horses, or as Kai approached. But he breathed, and Kai could see that, from the lantern that hung from the front of the interrogation tent.

"Get the shackle off his leg," Kai snapped at the nearest man, and he knelt and reached for Suho's face. "Suho.”

At the touch, Suho's eyes opened, head turning as he focused on Kai's face.

"Kai." There was such joy in that word, a pained smile spreading across Suho's face for only a moment before terror replaced it, a muddy hand pushing at him. “Kai! You have to go! They're using me to lure you here. You're not safe."

"I'm safe," Kai told him. “We’re both safe. These men are my father's. He didn't believe in your innocence when he heard the archer tried to cast blame on you."

"Your father's men,” Suho said, as though wondering. "But I would not have―"

"I know. I know you were not involved. Your only crime was being injured in saving my life."

He'd meant it as a joke, but Suho's face was so severe that he cursed himself. Suho had been locked up, beaten, interrogated. It wasn't the time for jokes.

"Can you stand?"

"I think so."

The shackle was gone, but Suho didn't seem to realize it had ever been there as he steadied himself with Kai's shoulders and stood. Out of the mud, at least. Someone handed Kai Suho's shirt, and he did not look at whoever that was, too angry for that. He just needed Suho covered for the ride home so they wouldn't add chafing and cold to the list of injuries committed against him.

"Suho.”

They both looked over as Sehun stepped up to them.

"Are you all right?" Suho asked, reaching for Sehun's arm.

"Yes," Sehun said, glancing at Kai for only a moment before telling Suho, "Thanks to you."

Suho shook his head but Kai finally got him into his shirt.

"We can thank everyone back in the tents," Kai instructed. "Sehun, can you ride or are you injured?"

"I'm not injured at all. I can ride."

Kai had taught him when they were younger, far away from the eyes of his father. Slaves did not need to ride. But Kai had brought an extra horse, knowing on his own he could take Suho - but he would not leave Sehun to walk back.

"Good."

He could not do to Suho what he wanted, to pull Suho against him and make sure he was not in pain, ask him if he was all right. The men thought Kai was angry then, and that was as it should be because he was. Sehun helped Kai boost Suho up into the saddle ahead of Kai before mounting his own horse.

"I thought I would die before leaving here," Suho said, as their pace picked up into a walk. "I thought if I saw you again they would try to kill you."

"I'm alive, and so are you," Kai said.

They settled into a canter, the tents his only goal. Suho would be washed, fed, held.

“Tell me if this pains you,” Kai said, but Suho was quiet, leaning back against him and holding with both hands one of Kai’s arms. It took them longer than he liked, but when he saw the light of the tents, it calmed him somewhat, pulling his horse to a halt and waiting for Sehun to come up beside him and hand off his own horse to one of the grooms. It allowed Kai to dismount and help Suho off of the horse. It twinged in him, when Suho grunted in pain, but they all walked back together. For a moment he met Sehun’s eyes, and Sehun shook his head, assuring him. Sehun was crabby and hungry, but otherwise fine it seemed.

“Water for Suho to wash,” Kai said, gesturing to Suho there, and Sehun nodded, slipping away. That was when Kai turned to Suho and truly looked at him.

Muddy, exhausted, there was a telltale wetness to his eyes as Kai gripped both of his shoulders.

“I was worried when I could not find you in the tent. When I couldn’t find Sehun— I would have looked fruitlessly if someone had not seen you being carried away.”

"I thought you would think I had run away, that it would be seen as proof of my guilt," Suho said, his face so very still, obviously hiding emotion.

“When my father told me what he had done, he would not tell me where you were, until he was certain of your innocence."

"He is convinced now?"

"I don't know that he could ever truly be convinced but he is more certain of it now than he was before. He is assured that you are more loyal than he believed before."

“That’s good.”

It was. It was, and he would not ask Suho to detail his ordeal, not then. It was a good sign that when Kai asked Suho if he could continue standing to wash, that he glared. Kai kept the chuckle to himself, helping Suho off with his clothes as Sehun and another slave returned with warmer water. It would have been easier to plunge into the cold water but that kind of a shock to Suho's body he couldn't fathom. Kai tested the two buckets of warmer water, and thanked Sehun, sending him away.

"Wait, I wanted to―" Suho said, trying to get him to get Sehun to stop.

"You can talk to him tomorrow," Kai said. "Whatever reassurances or apologies you think you owe. He's fine. Hold still."

The first pass with soap and water got most of the mud and filth from Suho's body. He ignored all protest and requests for Suho to wash himself, pushing away Suho's hands and making quick work of it. Maybe it wasn't as gentle as he'd have liked but it would get Suho off his feet quicker. Over the wounds he could see he was gentle, as much as he could be. Suho was hissing at him as he scrubbed through Suho's hair and then used the remainder of the water to rinse anything left, leaving Suho nearly shivering and reaching for the cloth over Kai's shoulder to dry himself. He let Suho take care of that, mostly. He couldn't help himself, though, using another cloth to dry Suho's hair.

"I know how you were bathed as a child now,” Suho sulked, as Kai guided him inside of the tent.

"Are you in much pain?" Kai asked, ignoring Suho's complaint.

"No. Just tired. They'd fed me some scraps of bread before you got there."

Kai stepped closer. "They said you called for me when they had you locked underground."

"Until I realized they wanted to use me as a lure. Or, at least I thought they did," Suho said, squeezing both hands tight.

He wanted so much right then to grab Suho close, touch every inch of his skin, hug him as he'd wanted to when he'd found Suho in that mud. There was no one there to judge him, just a man sagging with tiredness and probably not some small amount of relief. It was because of that that he urged Suho to the bed, pulling back the covers and waiting until Suho sank down.

And still there was protest.

“I should—“ Suho began.

“You should rest,” Kai said. “Stay there. Sleep. I will see to it that you are safe in these tents.”

“Kai.”

Kai turned away, filling a cup with cool water and bringing it to Suho. “Drink, and sleep.”

Suho drank deeply, shoulders sagging. Kai felt like he’d won some kind of victory, if only that Suho was listening to him on one front. But the second he moved, Suho’s eyes opened.

“You are not leaving?”

The words were urgent, not a demand. A query. Perhaps a worry as well.

“I am not leaving,” Kai said. “Just turning down the light.”

Suho’s breath was very shallow, and Kai was careful not to touch him as he climbed into the bed. .

“Wake me if you are hurting, or if you need anything,” Kai instructed him, just in case Suho was unsure.

“Thank you.”

The words were soft, and Kai closed his eyes even tighter. Suho should not have been thankful. Perhaps it was not of his doing, but his preoccupation with Suho’s health had kept him from finding the one at fault. At first it had been necessary in keeping Suho alive, but then it had been fear that going too far, being too angry, would make Suho disappear. He couldn’t think of them, too grateful, too relieved himself.

"Your heart still beats," Kai said, pressing his head to Suho's chest. It felt almost as though it was Suho who comforted him, sniffling a little and stroking Kai’s hair. He slept that way, the tension in him slowly leaving, and he woke to his head on the pillow beside Suho’s and Suho awake in the pre-dawn light.

“Kai,” Suho said, his voice soft, as though it would disturb the fragile silence around them.

Kai let his lips curl, his voice fought. “What is it?”

"If you believed I had done it, I expected death at your hands,” Suho said, and it as followed by a long, slow exhale.

"You thought I would believe their lies?"

Suho reached for Kai's face, cupping it gently. "Kai. If you had looked at me and thought me a betrayer, death would have been the kindest thing."

"You will not get away from me that easily," Kai said, covering Suho's hand with one of his, at least until Suho scooted forward and wrapped his arm around Kai's neck.

"I wanted to come back to this. To you."

"And now you are."

Both times. Suho had survived to return to him. There would not be a third, he was sure of it, and Kai pressed long, slow kisses to Suho’s lips, cradling Suho’s body against his and reveling in his warmth as they nuzzled against each other and dozed, comforted, together.

***

Suho was sore, but no worse from his ordeal. Kai approached him as though he had been shot again all over, muttering to himself until Suho’s hands soothed some of the anger from his shoulders. He touched Kai then, yes, because Kai did not tell him to stop. The night Kai had brought him back, Suho had bitten the inside of his cheek to fight back the hint of tears as he’d stroked Kai's hair. If Kai hadn’t turned to him, he would have turned to Kai instead, needing that contact, that assurance. He tried to wipe the ugly things from his mind, the thought that Kai’s father had thought he was to blame, the realization that Kai at least believed in him. He had to know that, with the way he had been pushed, the way they had tried to convince him that turning against Kai would be right. If he had taken the offered poison and left, he wondered if he would be dead already, even if he had gone straight to Kai and shown him. He had not cried that night, but after Kai had left him the next morning he had, when the weight of all of it had settled heavily on him. His life had been endangered, twice. Maybe he should’ve felt afraid even to leave the tent.

Kai was the reason that he was not afraid, and Suho knew that all too well.

“I will find who did it so you never have to feel afraid,” Kai had promised him. All he’d had to do was stay at Kai’s side and believe in him, with the slave cuff and its new laces that Kai had given back to him. Knowing how it could have been, it felt good to be coddled, to wake against Kai’s side. He spoke only quietly to Sehun, bruised but not much else. And those faded, too, along with the jolting at shadows and the feeling of being bound. He sat and he reveled in the normalcy of Sehun helping him with the dark paste that would tint his hair red, of feeling it cut, even, as it had been before he’d arrived, as he had kept it before he’d been injured.

It made him wonder if Kai would notice, touching his hair every so often as though to make sure it was still there. But Kai said nothing when Suho brought him his dinner, or when Suho made very pointed lifts of his hand toward it. He would, eventually, Suho knew. Suho cleaned their dishes, almost ready to pull out his mending when Kai ducked into the tent. he stood like a shadow, watching Suho until Suho felt self-conscious, wondering what was in Kai’s head. He didn’t have the look of a man pondering what was different, so Suho knew it had nothing to do with the change of his hair.

“Can I help you?” Suho ventured, and watched as Kai shook himself out of his thoughts.

“Do you feel up to a walk?”

Suho was on his feet almost without thought, bracing himself only a bit, before he walked to Kai’s side.

“To where?” he asked, and let his enthusiasm be his answer.

Kai looked away from him, a smile curving his lips as he slid his hand around Suho’s wrist and tugged him along. The sun was starting to lower in the sky but the way was still bright, and Suho realized they walked toward the horses, the horses milled, some hobbled or in pens, and Suho wondered if Kai meant to go somewhere. The walking did not pain him, a tightness only, and it felt liberating to be outside of the tent and free.

“Look,” Kai said, drawing Suho up next to him and pointing. Between one horse’s legs, another’s seemed to emerge, but thinner, shorter.

“Oh!” Suho said, and took a step forward as the foal appeared from behind his mother’s chest. “So small!”

“A late season birth, born during the night, but he’s healthy,” Kai said. “Come.”

Kai urged the mare closer with the promise of fruit, and she nuzzled his hand, leaning into his strokes and those of Suho’s as well. The foal, shy, wandered to both their sides, stretching out its slender neck toward Suho’s offered fingers and then dancing away before Suho could do much more than touch the soft muzzle.

“Will you name him?” Suho wondered, laughing as the little colt shook his head and made his whole body shudder with it. Still learning his limbs, his body. Suho knew how that felt, nearly feeling reborn as he had started to walk again.

“He will need a name one day,” Kai agreed. And the mare was unconcerned as Kai caught the colt and held him, held him until he was still and curious instead of alarmed, until the colt leaned his head into their stroking hands and nuzzled his tiny nostrils against Suho’s palm. “His sire is my horse, so he’ll be big and strong one day.”

“He seems impossibly strong already, for being only a day old. How amazing life is,” Suho marveled, and steadily did not react when it was obvious that Kai was making fun of him.

But they let the colt go, watching him rub against his mother and begin to suckle.

“Thank you for showing me,” Suho said, as Kai’s fingers wrapped around his and led him. It was not back toward the tent, not directly, a sort of aimless ramble where Suho kept close and wondered still at Kai’s mood, his thoughts. How tall Kai was, how straight and upright he walked, and Suho admired him, admired his profile.

“The horses are…” Kai began, and his voice trailed away as though he wasn’t sure how to continue.

“Freedom?” Suho asked, and Kai nodded.

“Freedom,” Kai agreed.

They sat, together, and Suho pressed himself against Kai’s side, not for warmth but because he was there. Horses grazed not far beyond them, the pond not so far in the other direction. Kai pointed out how the horses moved, how they were arranged and divided, which of them ruled over the others and which he would never part with. It felt like they were in their own land, high grasses and the sound of the wind and Kai’s breathing.

“How lucky we don’t have to use our own two feet to move,” Kai said, and Suho glanced up at him.

“Unless you’re a slave,” Suho teased, and Kai startled a bit, laughing at himself.

“Unless that. I spoke to my father again today. His mind remains unchanged, so you have nothing to fear.”

“I trusted you when you told me that before,” Suho said. Though he wondered, if Kai’s father could not have been convinced, what Kai would have done. He could not imagine Kai lifting Suho onto one of his horses and riding with him to safety. Perhaps he would have put Suho on one instead and sent him with all of his wishes, a slave, an outcast, a man suspected of trying to kill his master. It had him grasping Kai’s hand and lifting it, pressing his lips against Kai’s knuckles. He had trusted, because he had felt Kai’s faith in him. Had it been any other man, perhaps he would not have felt so secure, but it was Kai. Kai, who was young, but held power in his hands and did not wield it. Kai, who learned of himself every day and instead of making Suho afraid, drew him in. Suho exhaled, so content as Kai nuzzled against his hair. And yet—

“Oh,” Kai said, drawing back and lifting Suho’s chin. “Your hair.”

Suho blinked at him. Blinked, and began to grin, laughing as his head ducked and he laughed as Kai shook him. It only made him laugh harder, squirming away and collapsing back against the grass with a surprised sound.

Kai was almost about to tease him more, when he seemed to remember all at once.

“Are you okay? Did it hurt?”

Suho blinked up at him, a smile spreading on his face for a completely different reason. “No,” he said, truthfully. He touched Kai’s cheek. “No, it didn’t hurt at all.”

Grass was poking his neck but he curled his arm around Kai’s neck and met the softest of Kai’s kisses as Kai stroked his hair, his neck. He stroked his free hand up Kai’s arm, feeling the strength of him, moaning as Kai’s teeth caught at his lip and soothed it with kisses that made his head spin. He wanted that Kai, the Kai that forgot himself, who kissed Suho with such want and did not see him as fragile. Kai who wanted him, Kai who made him feel alive.

His body had begun to ache from desire, and from the loss as Kai almost shuddered and pulled Suho to his feet.

“Suho,” Kai started, and thought better of it, leading Suho back to the tent, to the darker shadows of the tent, the quiet, the privacy of it. Kai gathered him by the elbows, drew him in, kissed him beside the bed - the bed that had become their bed - until he was trembling, confused, wanting. Kai cleared his throat, his hands tightening on Suho’s arms.

“If you could have anything you desire, right at this moment, what would it be?”

“More books,” Suho teased at first. But he thought better of that, the way that Kai did not look at Suho as he asked. “I have missed being able to kiss you like this.”

The last word was almost swallowed as Kai met his eyes. There was something fierce there, tempered with attempt at control.

“Then it is kisses you want?”

“I enjoy that, yes.”

“Is that all?”

It was not. Not nearly. “No. To feel you above me. Finding my pleasure with you.”

He wasn’t sure where his boldness sprung from. Perhaps it was because Kai had not yet touched him, and had turned him away when he offered, but kissed him with such obvious want. It was not something he imagined, not as well as he knew Kai. It was fear that ate at him when he had begun to think Kai no longer was interested in anything Suho had to offer. If Kai turned him away again, he knew it would be time to begin sleeping in his own pallet again. If Kai kept him in his bed out of guilt, then that was not something he wanted to take advantage of. He did not sleep there to hear Kai relieving himself in the dark, though Kai looked at him with some tension in his face sometimes, and Suho was not sure why.

“I am sorry to be so bold. With my body healed, I find I miss that more.” And he also did not want Kai’s pity. “It is not something I require.”

He shuddered, as Kai took his hand, kissed his palm. “I miss these hands against my chest and shoulders. I miss my body rising at the sound of you moaning my name.”

“Then why haven’t you—“

Suho stopped his own mouth with his hand before he demanded to know why Kai would not touch him.

“I did not realize you wanted so much. You wish to kiss me?”

“Yes,” Suho said, brow furrowing. “If it is what you want.”

Kai’s lips almost twitched, holding out his arm and inviting Suho in.

“I want because you want and because I want,” Kai murmured, his nose sliding along Suho’s. “Show me.”

Oh, Suho had weeks of imagined scenarios to show Kai, a hundred touches he thought were mere fantasy until he felt Kai’s fingers sliding against his skin again. His worry faded as Kai smiled at him, helping him to wrestle with his clothes and sink onto the blankets. Even at the sight of the marks the arrows had left in his skin, Kai did not pause, kissing along Suho’s chest and stroking his thighs.

“Would it please you to have me fill you?”

Suho smiled like a man who knew all he wanted was at his fingertips. “Very much.”

His fingers tangled in Kai’s hair, holding him close, their lips meeting, and again. All the kisses that he had been without. Each kiss different, shuddering through him to feel Kai’s lips against his, urgent, soft, desiring. He moaned for Kai, against the soft kisses, against the fevered press of his fingers as his thighs widened impatiently. Kai’s lips were against his lips as Kai slid inside of him, and Suho’s body tensed to keep from tugging against his scars.

“You are tighter than I remembered,” Kai gasped, and Suho laughed, his hands grasping at Kai’s back.

“And you are bigger.”

It wasn’t the movement of Kai’s hips that hurt, but the jolting, the curling of his body as he struggled to keep his muscles tight. But even through the quiet pain, he breathed against Kai’s skin and it was what he had wanted, that closeness, that connection. When Kai reached between them and touched him, he shuddered and he came.

“Kai,” he moaned, because Kai was the only one there with him. Not the men of the temple, no one else but Kai. He was not a scared man, he was a guardian, Kai’s guardian. And Kai was his. They had been given to each other. He knew that as surely as pleasure coursed through him. His body was still aching, throbbing, when Kai groaned for him, spilled for him. They were frozen for a long moment like that, the only sound the sound of their breathing. Suho’s body ached, his scars ached, but even if he would be stiff in the morning, it was worth it. Kai, who walked with him, who talked to him, who used a wet cloth to wipe him clean as though Kai was a servant to him instead of his master. Kai let him go only long enough to turn down the light, and Suho slept with his nose against Kai’s cheek and Kai’s arm around him.

***

Kai watched Suho wake and knew that Suho was confused, when Kai roused him before the dawn. It was still dark in the tent, as Kai lit the lamps and urged Suho to dress quickly. He had not slept the whole night, lying beside Suho and listening to him sleep, warm beside him. Warm and whole at last, his body stronger it seemed by the hour. It had been a selfish whim to give in to Suho, to have Suho to surrender his body to him. But Kai had remembered Suho’s words - and he had not commanded. He would not have taken if Suho had not agreed. And how he had agreed, so eager, kissing Kai with hunger, whispering his name, moaning it. He could have had that, maybe for weeks. And the thought of Suho kneeling for him without choice, out of duty, had soured in him. Suho had desired him. Suho had nearly died for him. And even with a choice, Suho might have felt he had none.

To feel Suho beneath him, to watch him cry out in pleasure had been both confession and apology.

The horizon was beginning to brighten as they stepped out, and Kai nodded to his father and to Sehun, who stood some distance away.

“You know what you have brought to my life,” Kai said, before they had reached his father.

Suho glanced at Kai’s father before looking back. “Master…”

“You have been strong in the face of many things. You have survived wounds that would have killed many men. You have stayed true to yourself through many trials.”

“You were there to see me through many of them,” Suho said, his face so earnest, still unsure of what Kai was meaning.

“I caused many of them,” Kai corrected. “As a servant of the temple, you served many, not just one. This wrist cuff is a sign of your slavery, is it not? I put it on your arm when you came to my tents.”

“Yes,” Suho said.

Kai took his hand, holding it still as he untied the cuff, and removed it.

“Ka— Master?”

“It marks you as a slave no longer. Look to the horizon and greet this dawn as a free man.”

Suho looked to the horizon for only a moment before looking back to Kai. “What? Free? Where will I go? What will I do?”

“I am not casting you out. If it is your wish, you will still be a member of my household. You will be given a tent, and eat the same food as you do now. And Sehun… Sehun!” Kai waited until Sehun stepped closer to them. “Sehun is yours now. A gift from my father, in gratitude.”

Sehun’s head bowed to his new master, and Suho’s eyes went even wider. “What? But I can’t— Me? With a slave? I can’t—“

Kai shook his head only once. His father was listening. For Suho to reject his gift would be unthinkable.

“Thank you,” Suho said, looking toward his father only briefly.

“You will have horses, some of mine. The colt we saw. And a settlement to be made as well. But we can discuss that later.”

“I-I don’t know what to say,” Suho said, and he looked lost, floundering as he looked to Kai as though Kai would be able to show him what he needed. But Kai wasn’t sure what to say, how to assure him, except to know that the beginning of what was next started then, no matter what rose with the sun.

“Nothing now. Look.”

The dawn was golden, bright and nearly blinding as the first curve of the sun rose above the earth. Much as Kai had held Suho in the pond until they were sure he would live, he stood beside Suho as Suho became free. Free from his bondage, and free, perhaps, from Kai himself.

***


	8. Guardian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spoke of him as though he were nothing more than a treasure found by the roadside. He bowed to his new master because it was polite, and because he knew of nothing else he could do. See warnings.

***

If Kai had known just how thoroughly he had shaken Suho, Suho wondered if he would have been left at his new tent alone. Oh, it was a serviceable tent, not fancy. There was a bed. Suho’s chest was there in the corner, brought in by Sehun. There was a low table, a water pitcher. It was set up as though someone was to live there, as though he was to live there. The absurdity of it nearly came bubbling out of him when Sehun ducked back in. He was free. He had his own tent. He owned Sehun. None of it made sense.

“I did not expect this. What have I done to deserve this?” Suho asked Sehun, pacing when sitting was not helping him to think.

“Saving Kai’s life is something quite important,” Sehun said easily. “Are you not happy to be free?”

“Of course? Of course, I am. I haven’t lost my ability to think.” Though sometimes it seemed like it. “But Kai saved my life as well! He put himself to great trouble seeing that I would live. I thought that evened the burden between us.”

“What he did was in response to your sacrifice, though. He would have given more to see you made whole again. I wish you could have seen him holding you in the pond, talking to you, begging you to wake.”

Suho had gone to the pond, after, when he had been able to walk without fear of falling. He’d felt the desperation lingering in the water, and it had hurt him - and scared him that he had felt nothing from himself. He had been passive, there, held by Kai. It had only been Yixing’s interference, seeing deeper into Suho than even the water could, that had saved him. Thinking of it left him with an ache of melancholy, the worry when Kai had woken.

“Maybe he doesn’t believe my innocence,” Suho said, bewildered.

Sehun frowned. “But he freed you because of it.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps to see me gone from his tent, putting aside a tainted memory. A scarred memory.”

“If he does not appreciate what you have done for him, what you have been to him, then he is not the man I know,” Sehun said.

“He does not touch me,” Suho said softly. “Only once, since I was injured, has he asked me into his bed for anything more than sleep. And to sleep there, perhaps he felt he owed it to me.”

“Afraid of hurting you? Or if he meant to free you, he wanted to begin with you as a free man. Or guilty, because you hurt because of him. There are so many reasons.”

Suho shook his head. “No. Once he wondered if I would stay beside him freely. I felt the words carried some weight behind them, but I did not think his life would be threatened or that he would put me from him. Put me out of his tent.”

“To give you a tent of your own does not mean he wishes you to stay away from his.”

There was a certain logic to what Sehun was saying, but hearing it and really accepting it were different. It helped that what he wanted was far different than the reality he was seeing, and how he feared it would be going forward. Freedom didn’t mean a life of ease. His place among the tents was not guaranteed. They could put him on a horse and be rid of him before he could blink. But that Kai would want him close, he didn’t know.

“I wish I could believe that. I craved freedom for so long. I do not regret it, but there is much I do regret.”

When Suho saw how heavily his words weighed on Sehun, he reached for Sehun’s arm.

“Don’t worry for me. You don’t need to speak with him. If there’s truth to what you say, then it may be best that he finds it within himself. I would not push him to it.”

“As long as he doesn’t wait too long to discover what he should do,” Sehun muttered. “At least I’ll be here to help you while he decides.”

“And that. I can’t own a slave,” Suho said, freezing abruptly at the thought. He moaned, sinking down in front of the table and looking up. “Not you. We are friends. Not— No. If Kai can free me, then I can free you.”

Suho wondered at how unconcerned Sehun looked, as though the subject of his freedom was a mere amusement.

“Kai granted me a measure of protection in having his father give me to you,” Sehun told him. “As your slave, his father cannot cast me out. If you free me, he is not obligated to allow me to live in these tents. You may be free, but you are still bound to some rules. It is possible he would allow me to stay as your servant, but if you freed me immediately, that Kai asked that I be given to you would seem suspect.”

It made sense, and perhaps he would have thought of that as well had he had had the time to think it through.

“You have a good point. Then we could wait,” Suho muttered. “Oh. Oh! I could allow you to see your merchant!”

Sehun crouched in front of him, his eyes curving. “You could.”

“Even if you were my slave in reality, you would not…”

“I will do my duties,” Sehun told him. “I will bring your food, wash your clothes, help the others. I will help Kai if that is your wish.”

“Yes?” Suho said, and knew he sounded pitiful. He just needed time to think everything through, and he had no idea how much time he’d need.

***

It was quiet, so horribly quiet in the tent, even with Sehun coming in to check on him every so often. He rubbed over his wrist, and found it naked, bare but for the amulet. He picked up and put down his book. He had nothing to do. Nothing to clean, nothing to fold, no one to wait for. He watched the entryway hoping that Kai would appear, to see how Suho was, to see if he liked the tent, or just to spend time with him. Suho ate with Sehun, staring at his plate as he pushed the food around.

“Who took Kai his food?”

“No one he would take to his bed, if that is what you wonder,” Sehun said.

Sehun saw through that question, but maybe not the whole of it. “Did you see him? Did he ask you about me?”

“If you were settled. Asking me about him, or him asking me about you isn’t bring either of you any closer. Why do you not take your plate and eat with him?”

Suho knew Sehun wasn’t teasing when he looked up, but all Suho really could do was sigh.

“Because I’m stubborn,” Suho said, laughing when he admitted it. “And because I’m still worried. I want to see him, and I’m afraid of what happens when I do.”

“You’re still the same people,” Sehun pointed out.

And that was the truth. It was just hard to process, too many things to process at once. He’d went to sleep the night before pressed against Kai, and the thought of sleeping alone alone was something bitter to accept.

***

It took almost another day, bracing himself. If Kai would not go to him, he would go to Kai. He was not wiling to put the doubt in Kai’s mind that was building in his own, and he froze in the doorway of Kai’s tent to see him sitting at the low table with a man at his side. It was not a face that Suho knew, and it was not a slave. Just the fact that he found Kai not alone as he had expected had him turning, hurrying back along the path.

“Suho!”

He hadn’t turned away soon enough it seemed. Suho stopped, closing his eyes for a moment before he turned to face Kai.

“Did you need something?” Kai asked.

And Suho shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, I was interrupting you.”

“It was just a visitor,” Kai said. “I ate alone last night. The tent was too empty. He is a friend that I invited.”

Of course Suho knew. “Because of the—”

“Because you were not.”

The interruption forced Suho to inhale. “You moved me from your tent!”

“I gave you a choice,” Kai said, his voice tight and low. “I wanted you to make it.”

“I didn’t ask for one. Yes, I want that choice. But you didn’t ask me if I wanted to— You never told me I could come back!“

“You were in my bed almost every night. I took no one else to it but you.”

“The bed is yours. I was yours. You speak as though I have cause to protest.”

“You could still be mine,” Kai said. Suho felt the jolt, as thought the slavery would be bound on him by force again. “If you take me to your bed of your own choice.”

“Kai.”

“Let me worship at your body. Let me feel you moan for me. Let me speak your true name as you spill in me.”

Suho’s mouth was open, without his own choice, breath coming hard as Kai spoke.

“That has bound people before,” Suho said, trying to keep his wits among the images in his head and Kai’s squeezing fingers.

Kai’s lips had curled up, a tease and promise, and something like hope there that Suho could hardly bear to look at. It was as though Kai was asking if that would truly be so bad as he cocked his head. Hair fell across Kai’s eyes and he wanted to brush it aside.

But he shook his head. “Until that last night, you wouldn’t even touch me—“

“You’d been sick,” Kai said, voice fierce. “You were like some delicate egg that would crack if I looked at you, and the fault was my own.”

“Even when I offered you refused! Only to listen to you pleasing yourself.”

“How could I? You’d nearly given your life for me.”

Suho reached for his wrist, but the cuff was still gone. He shook his head again, twice, three times.

“I need to think,” he said, and he did what he had done so few times, turning from Kai when every instinct told him not to. But he made it not two steps before he heard Kai’s voice, low and urgent as Kai’s hand gripped his arm.

“Joonmyun!”

He did not turn, could not turn, could not risk looking into Kai’s eyes right then and losing himself entirely. “You cannot use that name against me! You must give me time. If I am free, that is my right.”

Kai took back his hands immediately, and Suho turned, skirting between tents. He was far enough away that he had slowed down, but he didn’t know where to go. He didn’t want to return to his own tent, not feeling as he was.

“Suho.”

Suho stopped. But the voice that had called to him was Sehun’s, and he watched Sehun approached him. His eyes dropped to Sehun’s tightened hands, before fixing on his face. He suspected, no, he knew, that Sehun had seen at least part of that exchange.

“I have known Kai since we were in swaddles,” Sehun said. “And I have never seen him thrown off as he is by you.”

“You wish me to give in to him,” Suho said.

Sehun shook his head. “Only if that’s what you want. You know that.” And Sehun touched his arm, the amulet there. “I was given this by… by my merchant, and brought it to him, for you, to ward away death. Though in truth, his love for you had done so already.”

“No,” Suho protested.

“I do not know what magic the healer performed that night, but you bear part of Kai’s soul. Do you not feel it? But I speak to you only because you should know not to fear anyone. He does not want another in his tent, or to hold him when his life is ended. Know that.”

Suho scrabbled at the cord around his arm. “You should have this. For you both. I have no more need of it.”

Sehun smiled, accepted it. “That’s what we all wanted.”

***

It was the water that Suho was drawn to, the quiet of it. It neither surprised him, nor offended him to hear the sound of movement in the water, and he knew what had brought him when he saw the lines of Kai’s shoulders as he moved in the pond. They had kissed there, and Kai had saved his life there. Perhaps it was meant, not on a dusty path, but in the cool and still, where he could feel honesty in the ripples of the water. They had spent days apart, the longest of any time since Suho had come to Kai’s tent, and seeing Kai from a distance had not been enough. Suho knew by his own words, Kai had felt he could not approach him. It was time, finally, to finish, to say the things he had ben waiting to say.

“Is this place only for you and your slave?” Suho asked, pausing at the water’s edge and feeling the pull of it, that, and the lonely slope of Kai’s shoulders.

But Kai’s response was almost immediate. “It is a place you are welcome, always.”

It was the invitation he had been seeking, when Kai made no move to leave, only watching him. But Suho did not feel self conscious as his loose pants dropped to the ground, and his tunic after it. He stepped down into the cool water and felt it soothe his heated skin. There was tension there, the way that Kai looked at him. He had nothing but himself, no basin, no amulet, no cuff. It was him, and the water, and it was an offering, a neutral place as Kai lifted his hand an ran a cool, wet thumb over the arrow’s mark on Suho’s shoulder.

“There are too many marks you bear because of me.”

It made Suho turn, feeling at once too exposed even with the cover of the water, a chill making gooseflesh rise along his arms. “Do they make my value lessen in your eyes? Did you free me because blemished I could not fetch a decent price?”

“No!” Kai said, and his voice was harsh even to the possibility of it. “I still haven’t found who was responsible for this. I feel responsible because I could not do that for you. I don’t deserve… Perhaps you deserve more.”

“I do not doubt you,” Suho told him. “Nor do I blame you for what you haven’t accomplished. You may find who was responsible, or perhaps not. But that had no weight to me. A wise man told me that I bear part of your soul. Perhaps together we can See your fate.”

There, where Kai had kissed him, and where Kai had saved him.

He felt Kai come up behind him, and did not startle as Kai’s arms surrounded him. Kai’s head was against his, one arm curving up over Suho’s chest to rest at his shoulder, and the other around his waist.

He wanted to rest his hands over Kai’s but he could not.

“What if you See something I do not like?” Kai asked.

“That is the danger in Looking. Else, there is only living.”

“Then that is what I want. I do not want to know. I only know…what I want.”

Suho swallowed, feeling the water lap at them.

“What is that?”

“I thought of this a few times, after I had you back. If I have a child one day,” Kai said into Suho’s shoulder, as though weighing his words. “I would have him learn at your knee.”

“Then he would be my student?”

“He would be your son. At the birth, I would want him born into your hands. That will tie his life to yours, and yours to mine.”

Suho blew out a quiet breath. “Kai.”

“You will see him grown with me. I dreamed of this.”

Suho’s lips curved at that. “Was it a waking dream?”

Not prophecy. Desire.

“You are a waking dream, Joonmyun.”

It sent warmth through them, and he laughed then, the thought of Kai picturing some uncertain future with so many uncertain elements. But they were together in that future, together in a way Suho would never have thought to dream of. Kai, who held him tight but gentle, who had put him aside when what he had wanted was to keep Suho close. He had given Suho his freedom when he could have kept Suho on his knees. Suho closed his eyes.

“You promised me there would be no other,” Suho said, and felt Kai’s shoulders tighten. “But I know there are some fates that cannot be changed. I will watch with you for that future.”

“Maybe one day you will dream of it, too. But it is my tent and my bed that is empty of what is home to me.”

Suho tilted his head back.. “Of that I foresee I will take you willingly to my bed, and that this future you desire, it may find truth in the living of it.”

Kai shuddered against him, holding him tight for a moment before turning him.

“May I kiss you?”

Suho shook his head, cupping Kai’s face. How serious he was. How lovely.

“Jongin,“ Suho whispered, watching Kai’s eyes go soft. And Suho kissed him.

***

Kai rolled with him naked onto the bed, pulling Suho atop him and letting Suho spend long moments to worship the lushness of Kai’s mouth as their skin warmed together. They were the kisses of his dreams, a way that Kai had taught him and yet not, cherishing amid the want, the pure flame of need that Kai inspired as his hands stroked Suho’s sides. He had missed it. Not the want and not even the kissing, but the warmth of him, the way he touched and said Suho’s name. He had been missed. Kai, who looked up at him, amazed, had been afraid.

He was so hungry to know Kai again on that bed that he could not even decide what he wanted. Kai braced over him, kissing him even as they moved together, and when Kai reached, the oil close, Suho parted his thighs and ached and moaned against Kai’s mouth at the press of Kai’s fingers into him.

“How will I last?” Kai nearly growled, and Suho shook his head vigorously.

“You won’t have to,” he said, and moaned again at the sudden emptiness, throbbing but not for long as it was Kai’s cock that pressed against him.

“Please,” Suho pleaded, when Kai paused, his mouth open as though he wanted to ask, as though he needed to hear. “Please, I need you.”

He would say if he was in pain, and if he was needing. They had been so close to that before, and that was all he wanted, that openness, that connection. He watched that assurance dawn over Kai’s face, and moaned in joy as Kai slid into him. They shared it, that pleasure, and it was theirs. He felt so powerful, gasping, his hands gripping at Kai’s shoulders and contorting in agonized pleasure as Kai gripped his cock and began to stroke him in time with his desperate hips. He came moaning Kai’s name, rocked as Kai groaned and fucked with such delicious abandon until his hips stuttered and stilled, gasping against Suho’s skin as he reached for him, held him, crooned for him.

“Jongin,” Suho whispered, and Kai moaned and held him, resting beside him on the bed. His face was damp, his eyes closed as he panted, and he was so beautiful then. And more so, when he studied Suho’s face, a smile curving his lips as he curled his arm tighter over Suho’s side.

“Sehun told me once that to know you wanted me, I should guarantee I would not beat you or put you from me or increase your work. I didn’t get a chance then, but I have it now,” Kai said, and he spoke slow, as though to make sure Suho understood. “Whether you share my bed, no matter how you share my bed, you have a place in these tents. You are free until your last breath. I want you to be with me, a free man who knows he is free.”

“You will know as long as I wish to be here,” Suho said. “It will…take time, I think to really fully understand.”

But with Kai to help him, he did not think it would take him so long to at least begin to feel secure in his freedom, in the knowledge that what passed between them was not obligation. And to lose any fear that it bore the weight of censure behind it. Even what they had done together that Suho had wanted, there had always been that danger there. They would change, had been changing slowly all the while, but it was not a change to regret.

“You asked me once if I would stay by your side if I was not a slave,” Suho said. “You know the answer now.”

They both knew the answer.

***

The cuff was thinner and it bore Suho’s name. It was simple, different than the cuff that Sehun had worn before, or the one that Suho had worn. Sehun had not seemed surprised to see it, that Suho would want to change the mark on his body to something more personal to him. It had been Kai who had had it made for him, Suho explaining what it was that he wanted to do and waiting for Kai to agree. There had been a smile there that Kai had been unable to hide, approval that had him leaning his head against Kai’s shoulder. But it was to Sehun that he presented the cuff. It was Suho’s duty, and he did so, to remove the cuff from Sehun’s arm. It had marked him as a slave. The absence marked a free man, as it did with Suho, but as Kai had explained, it was not yet safe. The old cuff rested on the table, as Suho’s own had not days before. Suho knew Sehun would feel the absence of it for some time, even with the new cuff to replace it. He helped Sehun to put it on, the ring of cloth and metal and laces.

“It suits me,” Sehun said, cheeky, glancing up at him.

“It does,” Suho said, admiring the new shine of it.

“I would feel naked without one.”

It was a sadness, but that was not the whole of it. Suho’s lips met Sehun’s forehead, soft.

“No matter what cuff you wear on your wrist, you are a free man,” Suho said, feeling the jerk as Sehun’s head lifted. “You were given to me to use how I wish, and this is my wish. I have known what it is to be a slave, and I have no wish to own a man. Certainly not a friend.”

Sehun did not panic, as Suho had when faced with the same revelation. He merely looked at Suho, a smile starting about his eyes, almost like he had expected it in a way. And from their conversation previously, perhaps he had. But it was one thing to wonder, and another to hear it, and Suho would not have him wonder any longer.

“You are welcome to stay with us,” Suho told him, nodding at Kai in case Sehun thought that he was making decisions above himself. “If you are happy doing what you were, you could continue that. If you are not, we will find something that pleases you. But you would be a servant, with a wage. Not a slave.”

“Kai…” Sehun said, looking to him.

“You have served at my side these long years,” Kai said. “Suho does what ought to have been done years before, had I had the authority to correct it. Or the knowledge that I should have.”

And there was something else.

“No matter where your merchant goes, or if he stays,” Suho whispered. “You will be free to go to him, or travel with him. If he is free to set up his own tent, you will be there with him.”

Sehun pushed himself up, catching Suho into a tight hug.

“I would have you meet him,” Sehun said, almost shuddering when Suho wrapped his arms around him as well. “His name is Tao, he—“

“Suho is still healing,” Kai nearly clucked.

And Suho just snorted and held Sehun tighter. “A hug cannot hurt me.”

Sehun almost swayed into him and they both squeaked just before Sehun almost blurted, “I don’t know how to be a servant.”

“We’ll learn together,” Suho promised. Perhaps he would be free, but that did not mean he would not still serve.

It was not that Sehun did not know what to do, but that the idea of being free - to choose ultimately where he might go - was overwhelming. They would nurture him. He would find his comfort in routines he knew, and expand. Suho would learn with him, though there would be but one tent to keep. He would keep the other as a pretense for a while. A meeting place for Sehun, perhaps. A place to sleep, that wasn’t amongst the boxes as though he was baggage. He was their friend. He was their family, and there was nothing more important than that.

***

It was the same, but so very different. The biggest change was that the pallet that Suho had slept on was gone, a tellingly empty space. It would be filled, one day, though he wasn’t sure with what. His trunk was back. Most importantly, he was back. He had so many things to be thankful for, to stand without pain, to have a warm man to turn against in the night as the air grew cooler. It was Kai who seemed fascinated, who had a harder time adjusting even than he did.

“It seems strange to see you doing those things,” Kai said, watching Suho stack their dishes and prepare to wash.

“It is not the same when I do them now.” It was his own tent, even if it was truly Kai’s. What he did, he did for himself as well as Kai, and it made him smile when Kai did even small things as trim the wicks or fold a blanket. It was as though Kai took ownership of his own things, pride in them. And the fact that he did them because Suho would not have to made it all the more endearing.

“It is good that you do not try to forbid me from it,” Suho said, and it was not as though the work was hard. It took mere minutes, and the tent was exactly as he liked it, and all the better for the sun setting because Kai was there and would not go out again.

Kai pouted, a cute sight as he then stared at the empty space beside him and then back at Suho. He told Suho without actually saying anything.

“Do you want me to correct your sums again?” Suho teased, sitting at the table and offering Kai the wine he had poured for him.

“You’ll only have to if you distract me.”

Suho accepted the sip of wine that Kai offered, and smirked to himself because he knew of many ways to distract Kai but none that he wanted to use just then. The numbers were important to Kai, and so they were to him. So he watched, quietly remarking as Kai completed his columns and added and subtracted, until the book rested completed and the cup between them empty. Suho, of Kai’s tent. He would wear a mark of Kai’s, a necklace, but it was not a mark to bind him. It was a promise, sworn on with the same words he had promised.

He’d walked with Kai the day before, gripping two of his fingers as they watched the colt run, no longer afraid of them, but curious, nosing after the treats that Suho always thought to take. That the colt was pleasing to Suho pleased Kai, and Suho laughed as the colt danced under his mother’s watchful eye. He took those moments, all of them. Perhaps the danger to Kai was not finished, or perhaps in some ways it never would be, entirely. But Kai smiled at the horses, and Suho smiled at him, and knew that he would be there to guard him.

***


End file.
